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Show ENGLISH LEADER FAVORS LEAGUE War Could Have Been Prevented Pre-vented by League to Enforce Peace. New York, May 12. Theodore Marburg Mar-burg of Baltimore, formerly United States minister to Belgium, at a dinner din-ner given him here tonight by members mem-bers of the League to Enforce Peace, told of an interview he had with Sir Edward Grey, In which the British foreign minister said he was whooly in favor of the plan of the League to Enforce Peace. This proposal is that a league of the great powers be formed at the close of the war in Europe to guarantee a lasting peace by pledging the use of their joint armed forces, together with, economic pressure against any signatory nation na-tion which shall refuse to keep its agreement to trv arbitrational methods meth-ods before beginning hostilities or declaring war. "Sir Edward Grey," said Mr. Marburg, Mar-burg, who recently returned from Europe, Eu-rope, "expressed the opinion that if some such plan had been in operation opera-tion when the present war was threatened, threat-ened, the war would not haye occurred. oc-curred. As the attitude of England would greatly influence the action of her allies, the view of Sir Edward will carry great weight when the terms of peace come to be discussed. Prospect Is Good. "I found other leading men in England Eng-land quite in sympathy with President Presi-dent Wilson's aspiration for some sort of Joint guarantee of peace on the part of the great nations. Indeed, I have come home convinced that there Is a real prospect of the great Ideal of the League to Enforce Peace being carried out after the war. But great emphasis needs to be laid on a serious study of all the problems involved in-volved now, so that the envoys who gather to frame a treaty of peace at the end of the war will come to the conference with a plan the principal features of which have been approved by the various chancellories. "I found It was generally felt that the United States, which is the greatest great-est examplo of a league of states, might properly take tho initiative in this movement. "No responsible body of opinion In England desires the dismemberment of German-. What the allies demand is that the German attitude should so change from the Insido that the rest of the world can live with her comfortably. com-fortably. This can probably be 'brought nbout only through the success suc-cess of the allies in the war, at least that Is their conviction. "If a change does come in the German Ger-man point of view, we can live with and work with one of the most heli fu! and inspiriting countries of Uu world. And it is believed that, In such an event, Germany could bs counted upon to join a league of nations na-tions for Justico, and that ou of jus tice would come peace." Mr. Marburg is chairman of the committee on foreign organization of the League to Enforce Peace, and while he was abroad took preliminary steps looking to the formation ot branches of the league in other countries. |
