Correspondence
A Letter from Geneva
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—If it were not for the Far East the Disarmament Con- ference would be monopolizing attention here, as it was meant to. As it is, a war that no one dares to call a war (because if this is real war it brings the sanctions embodied in the League Covenant automatically into play) is in unchecked progress, and every speaker at the Conference feels impelled to explain why this makes the holding of the disarmament conclave more opportune, not less. Mr. Henderson, Sir John Simon and M. Tardieu have all expressed themselves in that sense, and no doubt they are right, but the unsophisticated listener feels a little less convinced than he would like to be. The Shanghai conflict proves beyond question that armaments in irresponsible hands are the peril to humanity everyone always knew they were, but it also appears to demonstrate that the League can neither stop a conflict nor produce a victim of aggression. If that has to be admitted no State is going to renounce the weapons it may need for its protection at any moment.
But there is, of course, a fallacy, or the danger of a fallacy, in that argument. It is all too easy to talk of " the League " as though it were something different from the countries that compose it. The fact is, of course, that without them it is non-existent. What it does or leaves undone is what they collectively decide to do or not to do. As to the Council and the Shanghai fighting there is not much doubt in the mind of any Council member where the chief blame is. The fact that the proposals put forward by its four principal members, in conjunction with the' United States, have been accepted at once by China and rejected, as regards some of the most important of them, by Japan, indicates clearly in what direc- tion the Council should take action if it takes action at all. But will it ? Will Great Britain, or Italy, or Germany, or France ? The answer seems to be that they have got to the point where they would consider very seriously the with- drawal of Ambassadors, and perhaps some form of economic boycott, if it were certain that the United States would act similarly and simultaneously. That, apparently, is not certain, and doubt and hesitation consequently prevails here. But the tension is considerable, and it is recognized that at any moment some new turn of events at Shanghai may make inaction no longer possible for the Council Powers.
Meanwhile the Disarmament Conference, after starting
somewhat lethargically, has been brought up sharp against realities by the issue of the French programme. That docu- ment is, as I write, the centre of all discussion, and is likely to remain so, at any rate until M. Litvinoff has the opportunity of telling the Conference what Russia wants. And Russia's views, after all, are not to be taken as seriously as- France's. The first question asked, of course, is what France's motives were. Since this is a Disarmament Conference it seems at least conceivable that the motive was disarmament, but there is a class of critics which prefers to insist that M. Tardieu and the Cabinet behind him are simply executing an electoral manoeuvre designed to take the wind out of the Radicals' and Socialists' sails. On that it may be observed that persons who have been urging that the Conference be postponed till after the French elections, in the hope that the Left may by then be in power, have little reason to complain if the Right puts forward Precisely the programme the Left would have adopted.
Whatever the motive, the fact remains that the Government of a Great Power, and incidentally, a Government of the Right, has put forward proposals which, however you may look at them, do unquestionably involve a limitation of national sovereignty in the interests of international authority. No one, so far as I know, has quoted in connexion with the French plan the last of President Wilson's Fourteen Points- " A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants, for the purpose of affording mutual guaran- tees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small States alike." But that is what President Wilson said. The Allied Powers accepted thirteen of the points, including this one, without qualification or reserve when the Armistice was signed, and what France is asking is - simply that the Fourteenth Point be carried out in all its reasonable implications.
As to opinion at Geneva, there are those who • dismiss the whole French scheme as fantastic. There are more, I think, who feel that at any rate the first part, providing for the transfer of heavy bombing aeroplanes to the League and the internationalization of civil aviation, represents something both practical and valuable. The same may be said of the suggestion that an international police force shall be Made available at any moment by an undertaking by each State to maintain a small contingent of its naval, military and air forces for League service in case of need. To have it under- stood once for all that such contingents were available without fUrther negotiation or discussion might.be of immense value to the Council at a moment of crisis.
Other of the French proposals, for example, the suggestion that only those States should be allowed to retain heavy guns, large submarines and ships of over 10,000 tons who are ready to put them at the disposal of the League in, case of need, are much more open to criticism. The Federation of the League of Nations Associations' plan, put forward by Lord Cecil, providing for the prohibition of all these aggressive weapons, as in the case of Germany, is far simpler, though, of course, too drastic for any ready acceptance of it to_ be probable. But Sir John Simon moved in the direction of the Cecil plan from another angle when he urged the abolition of submarines and declared himself ready for a reduction in the size of ships and guns.
But the fundamental feature of the French plan is its handling of the security - issue. France is, of course, as insistent about that as ever, but it was a new nete that M. Tardieu struck when he declared (I give the literal trans- lation of his words) : " Our aim is to build on the basis of the Covenant, not to seek new bases." That creates an interesting situation. Many States, Great Britain among them, have set their faces firmly (since Loearno) against the conclusion of any new security agreements. But none of them, certainly not Great Britain, have proposed to repudiate the engagements they assumed deliberately and open-eyed when they signed the Covenant in 1919. If France says the Covenant gives her the security she wants, and on the strength of it she will both limit and reduce her forces, and hand over one type of weapon to the League, then it becomes a question of making sure that we and France and other States all interpret the Covenant in the same way. That may be the next important task to undertake.
Altogether there is a distinctly more hopeful atmosphere in Geneva than there was a week ago. The conviction that the Conference cannot be allowed to fail is growing more universal and more intense, and the French memorandum, good or bad, popular or unpopular, has very definitely imparted a sense of reality into the Conference. To which I may add that the remarkable demonstration of last Saturday, when petitions were presented from women, the Churches, students and Labour, has made a due impression on delegates. The clouds of pessimism are thinner than they were.—I am, Sir, &c.,
YOUR GENEVA CORRESPONDENT.
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