The Outlawry of War

The Kellogg Treaties

THE movement for international arbitration ought, if it is to be successful, to have one single purpose, the substitution of

an appeal to reason and justice for an appeal to force as the

solution of interstate disputes. The peace movement has never borne real-fruit except in that narrow sphere which

includes what are called justiciable disputes, for two reasons.

The first has been that war as an alternative solution was never effectively ruled Out. The second has been that the mechanism 'which would' compel the nations to submit their disputes to the test of reason and justice impartially applied has never been created: The proposal for the outlawry of war, which has come out of the Briand-Kellogg correspondence, for the first time 'creates the foundation upon which we can move f6rward probably to the final consummation—the universal substitution of reason and justice for force as the determining Power in international affairs.

-SET-DACES TO THE PEACE MOVEMENT.

Neither the European nor the American peace movements since 1919, by themselves, could have accomplished this end.

The Covenant of the League of Nations created an elaborate and in many ways a very satisfactory mechanism for the impartial examination of international disputes, and for mediation and conciliation about them. But it did not rule

out war as an instrument of national policy. War remains the lawful anima ratio regum, and as such it is almost

certain to take charge of the situation whenever the vital interests of the great nations are at stake and their national passions are inflamed. The Covenant is protection against small wars, but not against world wars. The Monroe Doctrine has been an attempt to keep the peace by severing political contact between the New World and the Old. The Great War itself and everything that has happened since in a rapidly shrinking world are proving to the United States that peace cannot be assured by trying to avoid war. The extent of the failure of the peace movement since 1919 can be seen from the record of the attempt to reduce armaments. Armaments are the barometer of the mutual confidence of the nations that justice and reason are in control of world affairs. Every effort in that direction failed, and even the moderate success of the Washington Naval Conference of 1922 was reversed at Geneva in 1927.

WHAT THE PEACE PACT REALLY MEANS.

The Kellogg proposal, however, based as it is on what is loosely called the outlawry of war, introduces a new and vital element into the problem—an element which not only can unite the European and the American peace movements, but which alone can lead us with certainty to our goal. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this element, and nothing is more necessary at the moment than to under- stand what it is, especially as on both sides of the Atlantic there seems so far to be little general comprehension of what it is. If the Kellogg Peace Pact is to mean anything effective, it must mean that the nations undertake to try to maintain the peace of the world on exactly the same principle as they Individually maintain peace within their own boundaries. What is the basis of peace within a civilized state, of the Pax Romana, the Pax Britannica, or the Pax Americana ?

It is the effective will that the use of violence as the means )f achieving any personal or group end shall be renounced

And prohibited, that every problem and every dispute shall be solved by an appeal to reason and justice as applied by the law courts or the legislature, and that the irresistible force possessed by the State shall be used—but ruthlessly used—for one purpose only, to prevent violence from accom- plishing anything and so compel resort to pacific modes of settlement. That is the foundation of peace in every corner of the civilized world to-day. It has been the foundation of civilized peace ever since history began; Peace has nowhere been long maintained without it. It is not the basis either of the Covenant or the Monroe Doctrine. It must obviously be the basis of the new proposal to outlaw war. No RESERVATIONS.

If, however, the Kellogg treaties are to lay the foundation upon which real progress towards international justice and therefore international peace is to be made, they must contain no reservations whatever which will concede to any nation the right to use war as an instrument of its national policy for any purpose at all. This does not mean that nations renounce the right to use force to repel attack or to defend international law. On the contrary, they must be prepared to use force for both these purposes. But it does mean that they renounce the right to achieve any national purpose by war and that force is to be used in future only to insure that nothing shall be accomplished by war, but only by constitutional means. If the Kellogg treaties go through in their present form—that is, without making any reservation of the right to use war as the instrument of national policy for any purpose—they will in themselves provide the solution of that dangerous controversy which has begun to revive between the United States and Great Britain over what is loosely called " the freedom of the seas." The danger of collision between the United States and Great Britain-7411e danger which has already given rise to incipient competition in naval armaments between the two -- arises from one situation, and one situation only—when either uses its Navy as the instrument of its national policy. For when either of the two Navies does this it immediately begins to interfere with the neutral trade, and therefore the pros- perity and security of the other in the interests of its own national policy. This question caused the war of 1812, the troubles during the American Civil War, and the grave risk of American intervention against the Allies between 1914 and 1917. It is the only question which has ever seriously estranged the two peoples or seems likely to do so.

PEACE AND FREEDOM OF TIIE SEAS.

If the Peace Pact is concluded and really lived up to, that danger automatically disappears, for the role of naval -power will entirely change. Instead of being the instrument by which the two nations accomplish their own national policies, it becomes the main instrument through which the use of war as an instrument of national policy can be pre- vented and settlement by pacific procedure can be enforced. Both nations automatically renounce the right to interfere with neutral trade in the interest of their own national policy and by implication to use naval power only as police power. Sea power—as Admiral Mahon pointed out—is essentially a police power. If war were really outlawed sea power could only be used for police purposes—that is, as the means of preventing any nation from appealing to war, and therefore for compelling them to appeal to whatever machinery may be set up for the settlement of international disputes by reason and justice.

THE PACT ONLY A BEGINNING.

There is one further point. Obviously, if the Peace Pact is to be effective, it will have to be followed up by something more. We shall have to develop a system for the pacific settle- ment of international disputes which will be an adequate alterna- tive to war. And we shall have to make a clear differentiation between war and the legitimate use of force for police purposes. As to the first, Europe has gained a great deal of experience in working the mechanism of investigation, arbitration and conciliation created by the Covenant, though a distinction will clearly have to be drawn between the use of these methods in regional questions and world questions. As to the second, the difference is surely clear. War is the use of force in order to achieve a national purpose or to dictate a solution of an international problem. Power used for police purposes is force used for exactly the opposite purpose, namely, to prevent anything being accomplished by war and so to compel a resort to pacific modes of settlement. The working out of these aspects of the peace problem, however, is a matter for the future. The first step is to get an agreement on the renunciation of war as an instrument of international policy, for it is not until that has been done that nations will begin to take seriously the two remaining and perhaps more difficult aspects of the peace programme.

PHILIP KERR.