INDIA'S WORLD-ROLE : I

" In the West it may be difficult to achieve general security. But at least there is visible the general shape of things that could be made to come to pass. . . . But in the East the whole situation is dynamic and set for epoch-making change of which we cannot foresee the limits. . . . The defeat of Japan will be the beginning and not the end of profound historic change in the Eastern world."

His conclusion is that

"if stabilisation of at least half the world is impossible in our time, then it follows that only by participating in the organisation of sufficient lawful power can we hope to hold the impending and impredictable changes within peaceful channels."

How is " sufficient lawful power" to be organised? For the past century and more British power has maintained security in what is perhaps the key-area of the " East," the broad belt of land and sea between Aden and Singapore which may conveniently be described as the Indian Ocean region. But a strong section of opinion in Asia, in America and in this country now regards British power in this region as essentially " unlawful," and the Atlantic Charter, guaranteeing self-determination to all peoples, is held to be its death-warrant. Nor has British policy been out of accord with the principles of this opinion.

In India and elsewhere from the earliest days it has encouraged education in British ideas of liberty, and thus not only countenanced, but itself stimulated, the demands for national self-government.

And these, in recent years, it has sought to meet by building up in the countries concerned the framework of Parliamentary govern- ment to which eventually the British responsibility might be trans- ferred. A kind of fixatioa of the American mind on the Kipling conception of Empire has perhaps blinded American critics to the changes which have actually taken place, but the real fact is that the British Government had modelled its policy on the Atlantic Charter long before the Charter was written.

But now, before the final consummation of this policy on the one hand, large sections of American and British opinion stand ready to spur on the British Government and to criticise any delay as evidence

of a long-concealed dishonesty of purpose, there is, on the other hand, at least among those who are close to the conduct of affairs, a growing appreciation of the dangers in the world situation, of the futility of hopes for national freedom except within a structure of international order, and, finally, of the fact that such a structure can have no strength without concerted action among the United

Nations. Is such concerted action consistent with unrestricted self-determination by all nations? Is the maintenance of a struc- ture of international order to rank as a moral obligation for the United Nations in the same category with the obligation to respect the principle of national self-determination? If the two obligations are in conflict, which is to have priority? These are questions

which must be honestly faced. And there are others which must be answered if the implications ate to be clearly understood.

Mr. Lippmann has done a great service in presenting a realistic appreciation of America's position in the world. With relentless

clarity he has shown how United States security, including her

Monroe Doctrine commitment to " defend in war " the whole

lands of the Western Hemisphere, had the past depended on the

unacknowledged assumption of British naval supremacy in the

Atlantic. But has not America's "national extension" (both in interests and commitments) towards Asia depended on a parallel

unacknowledged assumption—the maintenance of Pax Britannica in the Indian Ocean region? Have the consequences of a weaken- ing of British order in the lands of that region been sufficiently appreciated? If the British Navy in the Atlantic is no longer equal to its nineteenth century task, a strengthened American Navy can enable the two in concert to discharge the task borne once by the British Navy alone. That is a straightforward matter. But, if the ordered unity of the Indian Ocean Region disintegrates into chaos, what can take its place? What will the reactions be?

It is with these question; in mind that British policy for this region needs to be realistically considered. That policy, as com- monly conceived by current public opinion, might be described as " piecemeal dominionisation." That, developed to its logical conclusion, means creating a row of Succession States in place of the unified Empire of the Indian Ocean Region ; an autonomous India—probably an autonomous Hindustan and an autonomous Pakistan—an autonomous Burma, an autonomous Ceylon, and, if the policy is fully applied, an autonomous Malaya. What would be the prospects for these States? What sure hope is there of internal stability in any of them? And what of their external security? What strength of defence—as war strength is measured in the modern world—could each muster? Could they be relied on to have a common foreign and defence policy? Could actual quarrels be avoided? Even if they remained formally within the Empire as " Dominions," what guarantee would there be of common action? The lesson of Eire cannot be ignored.

In a stable world the possibilities suggested by these questions could not be viewed without anxiety. But, as Mr. Lippmann has pointed out, the setting of Indian Ocean Region is one of in- stability and uncertainty. Its fragmentation or " Balkanisation " may create the very conditions which lead to international conflict. War in Europe has repeatedly sprung from the clash of Great Powers pressing competitively on a weak and disorganised area, and one of our profoundest political thinkers laid it down that the dissolution of great political unions is never a peaceful process.

" Upon the breaking and shivering of a great State and Empire you may be sure to have wars. . . . When they fail, all goes to ruin and they become a prey."

Here then is the problem. How can we find a way of political progress which satisfies the principle of national

self - determination, yet sufficiently . preserves the unity of the Indian Ocean Region and its capacity to exist as a nucleus of order and a support for the structure of world peace? Can British power, in a new form, not as a dominating rule, but as a unifying and supporting influence, become " lawful " through acceptance by the peoples of the Region? The solution of this problem is essentially a British responsibility, but it is an interest of all the United Nations. Will they, and especially America, help this country in its supremely difficult task? Or will they, by ex- pressions and criticisms superficially made and easily misunder- stood, make it more difficult?

Mr. Lippmann, in one of the most arresting passages in his book, says that a British policy which continued the nineteenth- century imperialism would forfeit Great Britain the support of America, lead to conflict with Russia and China, and thereby in the end disrupt the concert of the victorious Powers. Nobody in this country seriously thinks of perpetuating British imperialistic domination. But might not the other extreme policy, the policy of complete abandonment of the British role in Asia, endanger no less the grand alliance of the Powers, by engendering chaos in the Indian Ocean from which dissension would ultimately arise?