Two Hemispheres
IT is a weary road along which we seek peace and ensue it through the years that pass since the War.
The doors of the world's Temple of Janus were to be shut " for good "—in all senses—by the Covenant of the League of Nations. They were to be barred and bolted by the Pact of Paris. We have been buoyed up with hope by such a Pact after the manner of men when it is new, rather than kept a firm pull on the anchor of the League, the most stable source of hope for more than twelve years. In the rush of to-day most things are tainted with dullness after so long. The League has passed under heavy clouds at times : it has had spectacular failures of which its ill- wishers have made the most ; worst of all, it has been wounded in the house of its friends. To-day we say, with deep disappointment, that Signor Mussolini is one of those " friends." Yet even those who have not the gratitude to say so, know that the League's influence has been for good and that the aggregate of that influence has been incalculably great. The claim of Japan last autumn that the gates of the Temple need not be open on her account seemed to us humbug, but it was a tribute to the prevailing public opinion that she made the claim, and this public opinion is due to the League. The report of Lord Lytton's Commission will bring the next test, and no one who does not support the League then with might and main will have any right to decry its influence.
Now, there is another war. Bolivia and Paraguay, members of the League, and Paraguay a signatory of the Kellogg Pact, are fighting across their ill-defined frontier. This is a shame and a scandal, and none the less so because at a distance people describe it with the irritating phrase of a " comic opera war." The wretched territory in dispute has potential value which is coveted, and Bolivia wants to move the frontier forward so that she may obtain better access by river to the seaports far away in the south. On neither side is there any desire to shed much blood or to fight except in the present season of the year, when the weather is favourable. But wherever shots are fired in anger to-day there is shame for the world. We have little heart therefore to be amused by the ironies. Yet this war compels a picture to rise of the League's Inter- national Police, and we see Major Lord Davies leading his polyglot forces to the very centre of South America, where they will arrive to sit down in a swamp long after the belligerents have gone home to their peaceful occupa- tions for six months at least. The war reveals another irony. The League successfully put an end to the fighting when it last broke out. The United States kindly made a loan to Bolivia to set her up again. Bolivia naturally spent the money in the United States on armaments to ensure success this summer, and, having spent it, defaulted on the loan. That is, roughly, the tale and it leaves the United States (of course, through no fault) in the position of having armed one side in the war and armed it free, gratis. Europe will not be human if her thoughts do not for a moment gently stray to the forts of El Grand Chaco when next she listens to a well-deserved lecture on arma- ments. That is by the way. We prefer to record that the President of the Council of the League has taken the proper steps in communicating with the two errant members. The Foreign Offices of the Powers have protested and offered help, a correct movement that has been by no means well received. The Pan-American Union has stated to its two fellow-members that no alteration of territory brought about by this fighting will be recognized. Washington has led the Union along the same line that the State Department followed in addressing Japan about Manchuria. If people describe this as a failure of the League to prevent war, illustrating its weakness, we would ask them to look a little deeper. Anyone who has eyes to see an inch below the troubled surface must be aware of an immense access of strength. We have never pressed the United States to enter the League. That is their business, not ours. Their entry would bring great advantages, but there are also advantages to be seized from their remaining outside. It is time to acknowledge thankfully that there has been an immense advance, increasing lately in strength and pace—vires acquirit eundo—in the happy collaboration of the United States with the League and with the progeny of the League, those International Conferences which are not meetings of the Council or Assembly of the League. There lies really a new great hope to cheer us on the weary road. That it is particu- larly congenial to us is a small matter in the general advantage to Europe. And the collaboration is not grudged ; we are not gloating over having succeeded in " entangling " the United States. That unpleasant word, recalling a strait, self-centred policy only fit for a nation still seeking its maturity, seems to be forgotten in America and regretted nowhere.
When Mr. Hoover first stood for the Presidency, we hailed him as a candidate with a better understanding of this hemisphere than earlier Presidents, for we had seen his work in Europe. Senator Borah we have long respect- ed for his character and the importance of his place on the Council of Foreign Relations, but during and after the War we feared lest his great abilities should be nur- tured on the wisdom of Idaho rather than on experience to be found in wide knowledge of two hemispheres. Of Mr. Stimson we have heard nothing but good before and after he succeeded his distinguished predecessors in the State Department. To-day we rejoice that these three men wield their power.. The latest public speeches of Mr. Borah and Mr. Stimson have cheered us greatly. They have had excellent advisers in Europe, General Dawes, Mr. Gibson, Mr. Mellon and others, and they have proved their own wisdom by profiting from that advice. These speeches take for granted now that the civilized world is one. Mr. Stimson's proud disquisition on the Kellogg Pact, delivered last Monday, presents an American view of war in full harmony with the view of the League. Mr. Borah utters on the political and economic troubles of the world the sentiments of the wisest spokesmen at the Lausanne Conference. He adds : " I favour encour- aging, supporting and co-operating with the spirit of Lausanne. But I am not in favour of doing it piece- meal." And of the world's financial and currency troubles, he asks what is their source, and answers : " It is with reparations and debts, and unless you discuss those and settle them, your settlement of the money question would at most be but temporary."
Let us then take new hope again and draw fresh confidence by recognizing this change in the United States. These leaders will be followed by public opinion there. And we here must not fail to meet the new spirit there. A cold, unresponsive attitude here would quickly damp the ardour there. There is no longer the well- meaning, but apparently unsympathetic, critic who so often misunderstood our difficulties in this hemisphere. In matters of peace and war, of economics and finance, of reparations and other debts, there is, added to the wisdom that Europe should have gathered from her past, the vitality and the good will of the United States to set the world turning smoothly again.
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