TOPICS OF THE DAY.
.AMERICA'S ACHIEVEMENT IN THE CAUSE OF PEACE.
?THE United States Senate has endorsed the Four- Power pact, as we felt sure it would. Endorse- ment by the Senate, remember, means not passage by a bare majority or the voice of the odd man, but by a two-thirds majority of those voting. The system of requiring a two-thirds majority for the ratification of Treaties, which gives to a confessed minority a .right of veto over all foreign policy, is in the opinion of most Americans a grave defect in the Constitution. For our- selves, though we may agree on the abstract point, we say nothing. It is not our business. If the abstract disad- vantages are granted, it is clear that when the minority of the Senate is not large enough to exercise a veto the potency of the ratification is immensely increased. By an act, impressive from its very complexity and difficulty, the United States has shown the whole world that it means peace business and not merely peace talk in that portion of the world which the American people have marked out as the special field of their activities. It is true that a reservation was adopted by the Senate in their ratification of the Treaty, but it is a reservation which, though important in form, is not important in substance. It will not in the least derogate from the position taken up, or to be taken up, by America in regard to the affairs of the Pacific. Neither will it tie the hands of the American Government. It is merely the kind of proviso which cautious statesmen make when they declare their intention of offering the most strenuous opposition possible to some particular policy. While the ordinary man is content to say, " By every means in my power," they insist on slipping in the words " lawful and legitimate." The result, of course, is the same, for no one ever deliberately proposes to act unlaw- fully and illegitimately. Reservation or no reservation, treaty or no treaty, you cannot fundamentally alter the Constitution of the United States by the clauses of a • treaty. Again, you cannot, through such clauses, force the . American people, or any other people, to do something which they are determined not to do. Makers of inter- national treaties by the nature of things bind not them- selves, but others. They must in the last resort rely upon such indeterminate things as the sense of honour Sand of moral obligation, which are not enforceable in a Court of Law. This, though it sounds a weak tie to the pound of flesh " kind of lawyer, may quite well prove the strongest thing in the world. When it is universally admitted that a nation cannot do certain things without loss of honour, or when, as the Chinese would say, to do this or that would cause loss of face for the nation, there is no need of further obligations. Therefore we may consider not only that the quadri- lateral Pacific Ocean Treaty is passed, but that the other treaties in regard to the limitations of armaments, &c., will also be passed, and probably by larger majorities. This means a tremendous triumph for the cause of international peace and, What we shall make no apology • for thinking even more important, a tremendous triumph for the cause of Anglo-Saxon good faith and good under- standing. No one wants less than we do to see anything in the way of a fixed alliance, entangling or otherwise, between the British Empire and the United States. No one, again, wishes less than we do to see either Power claim any sort of right to intervention or interference in its kinsman's affairs. Each Power. must, and will, do what it wills with its own. America, no doubt, may often • do things in the future which we shall think hard, or wrong, or ill-timed, and we shall also, no doubt, do things which will incur strong criticism in America. But that does not matter any more than the friction between brothers and sisters, who are often exceedingly hard and even unjust critics of each other.
What does matter is that we two Powers have come thoroughly to understand each other's ultimate aims .and aspirations. Both Powers stand for peace and not for wasting the substance of the world upon armaments and prepara- tions for war. Both Powers stand for enforcement of treaty obligations until those obligations have been by due process abrogated. They stand, that is, for the sanctity of international contract. Both Powers stand for demo- cratic government—for government by the Will of the People, constitutionally and clearly expressed. This last may, at first sight, seem to some Englishmen and some Americans as a principle out of place in the context. They will be inclined to regard it as something in the nature of an interference with the complete liberty of each nation to insist upon a particular principle and type of government. As a matter of fact, it does not mean interference. • What it does mean is a clear recognition of the fact that, taking the world as it is, there can be no successful basis for a firm peace between nations unless those nations are in the last resort self-governing and the Will of the Majority prevails and not the will of an autocrat or of an oligarchy. No durable or enforceable contracts can be made with any nation which has not got a democratic basis. The • reason is obvious. Some usurper, revolutionary or other- wise, will always claim to speak for the people, though he has no such right. He will tell you that he cannot maintain this or that former contract of his Government because that contract was Ora vires—it was not recognized by the people. To make stable contracts you must deal with plenipotentiaries, and no man can be the plenipotentiary of a nation unless he is appointed by a Government that rests on the popular will. This is neither subtlety nor political metaphysics. It is plain common-sense, as can be shown by a ready illustration. The real trouble about Germany in the years before the War was that Germany was an autocracy and not a democracy. Our Pacifists here were always talking about the German Government and the German people being really peaceful. We, in common with most Englishmen who thought out the matter, saw that the talk, such as our Liberal statesmen indulged in, about a peace party in Germany really did not matter one way or the other, because the Germans had not got a democratic system. The German autocrat could send forth his armies and his navies to battle without the consent of the people. He could make war or peace by his own will. Therefore, we felt that there could be no secure peace with Germany until the German people took the matter into their own hands and told their rulers that, civil war or no civil war, revolution or no revolution, they insisted upon having their proper share in the govern- ment and in giving Germany a true, not a sham, democratic basis for her polity. The real danger to Europe was not the huge size of the German Army or the vastness of Germany's preparations, but her Constitution. This rich, prosperous, well-organized and well-educated people had allowed itself to be dominated by Prussian squires and Prussian bureaucrats who were unfit to be trusted with the tremendous physical powers which the German autocracy gradually acquired. We know, of course, that the conventional thing to say is that democracies are warlike, or at any rate unpacific, as well as unstable. History, we arc told, proves it. Was not the Government of the Roman Republic imperialistic ? Was not France under the Jacobins the most aggressive and militaristic Power that ever existed ? In our own time, has not the Communist Government of Russia proved so warlike that, even in its short history, it has violated the territory of every neighbouring State and made its army the one flourishing institution in the country ? The answer, of course, is that none of these examples are examples of democracy, but merely tyrannical and oppressive oligarchies which chose to clap the label of democracy on their backs and who pretended to speak in the name of the people when they were only speaking in the name of some tiny and disreputable minority. A stable and universal peace must rest upon inter- national contracts. But you cannot make firm contracts with minors, or slaves, or persons in any form of tutelage. To get a firm set of contracts you must have a %nu set of free contractors. Therefore you come round to the point at which we started—True as contrasted with Sham democracy is essential to the peace of the world. This is a fact which we want to see fully recognized. If it is, the maintenance of peace and of democratic systems of government will go hand in hand. In our opinion, the Powers should do everything they can in this direction. For example, though we must not actually dictate to Germany and the remains of Austria what forms of govern- ment they are finally to work out for themselves, it should be made clear that the victorious Powers will be able to do much more to assist their recovery, to help to put them on their legs again commercially, and generally to feel confidence in their good faith and stability if they choose democratic rather than autocratic systems of government. Obviously, if Germany were to go back to a Hohenzollern militarism, the rest of the world would feel that she must be very carefully watched, and that there must be no more talk of doing things to strengthen her. On the other hand, if Germany main- tains a truly democratic system—that is, one which is neither Communistic nor militaristic, but one in which the Will of the People really prevails—we can far more readily repose trust in her and can far more safely enter into contractual relations with her, and so secure peace for her as well as for the world generally.
Of course, this democratic condition tends to exclude the Asian Powers, except Japan, for none of them is at present fitted to be a democracy in the true sense. There is something in the mind of the Oriental which makes him desire autocracy, and it is no good pretending that this is not so and trying to camouflage the situation by torrents of rhetoric. We must accept things as they are, not as we should like them to be. No good can be done by diluting any system of contractual international law if in that system something in the nature of a paramount law court is to be the tiltinta ratio instead of the bomb and the bayonet.
It may be that the final trustees of the peace of the world will have to consist of the White Powers, Japan being included in that category, and that for communities which have not yet shown themselves capable of establishing a true democracy something in the nature of tutelage will have to be worked out. Anyway, we are convinced that the road to success in the matter of universal peace lies through a good understanding among the whole of the English-speaking race. If once that understanding is made permanent, and statesmen on both sides learn that they must not play tricks with it but must work it unselfishly, for the sake of each other and for the sake of the world, we shall have taken an enormous step in the right direction.
But our union of hearts, though it will be exclusive in the matter of sentiment, must never be exclusive in the matter of action. We must welcome o our peace banquet all other Powers just as we have welcomed Japan. On the handfasting of Britain and America may be built up the handfasting of the orld. That is why it is a cause worth living for and dying for.
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