The League of Nations
Why the United States' Senate Holds the Key to Peace
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM.
I have just read a really important book which dwarfs everything that has been written about the League since its inception. The Origin, Structure, and Working of the League of Nations, by C. Howard-Ellis, reviewed last week in the Spectator, is the first of a series of three books which aim at describing the evolution from international anarchy to a world polity. This is to place the Geneva organism in the right perspective. For the League is neither a pacifist mission- ary society nor simply a platform for the airing of international grievances--there are at present plenty of private international associations ek.s' ting for both these purposes such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Federation of the League of Unions, and the International Socialist Federation, but it is something far bigger, a deliberate attempt to organize the world for peace and a solid framework for the new international society.- The lesson of all historical experience is that peace in any Community is inseparable from government ; i.e., organized co-operation. Not less so in the international community. Yet until ten years ago the society of nations was in law and in fact a number of isolated units—and this at a time when the organization of trade and finance was manifestly world-wide. As Mr. Howard-Ellis truly says, " We must make a world society morally and politically, for we are already living in a world society materially."
The new system of international relations imposes certain responsibilities, and among other things all members of the League by signing the Covenant have accepted the principle of international protection in the place of the old anarchical Principle of national self-help. But this system is obviously unworkable so long as the United States Government holds aloof. For it is unfortunately the way of the world to-day that Solon must wait upon Croesus. There is no likelihood of any change in the official American attitude to the idea of joining the League, but at least one may hope that Anglo- American conversations may lead to effective collaboration in the common cause.
THE PACT. A FRESH- START.
The fact that the co-Operation of the United States is indis- pensable to the work of the League of Nations for peace was never better illustrated than by the guarded references made to the Kellogg Pact, both at this year's Assembly and again the other day at the Pilgrims' Dinner. We can be fairly certain that the diffidence of the European Statesmen in the face of this new peace-kite from America was due to the very considerable doubt as to whether such a project would ever meet with the approval of the Europe-shy Senate. So, although obviously the League alone can implement the Pact by the concrete definition of the " pacific means of settlement of international disputes "—Article 2 of the Pact—it was left to M. Voldemaras, the Lithuanian dictator, of all people, to formulate any such proposal in the Assembly. But the Peace Paet, as Mr. Baldwin remarked recently, gives to the nations, and to Anierica in particular, what we should all like in our private lives--an opportunity for a fresh start. It is no exaggeration to say that on the fate of the Kellogg Pact in the American Senate hangs the whole future of civilization. Any attempt in this country, however, to " push " the Pact is bound to have the opposite effect to that desired, especially in the present delicate state of official Anglo-American relations. LEAGUE OF NATIONS UN/ON CONFERENCE.
Under these circumstances one cannot help thinking that the Conference on Armaments, and the Pact of Paris for the Renunciation of War, held under the auspices, of the League of Nations Union on December 5th and 6th, was ill-timed, coinciding as it did with the opening of the discussions on the PaCt in the American Senate. The daily Press reported Conference as opening in an atmosphere of gloom, and although that was perhaps an exaggerated impression induced by thoSe harbingers of gloom, armament statistics, there is no doubt that the four meetings were ineffective, if not actually harridul, foi the cause of peace. At the first meeting the subject of disetission was the Cost, Burden and Danger of
Armaments, and there was the usual palaver about the ' intolerable conditions " of the present expenditure on armaments. It is almost a truism that competition of Army, Navy and Air strength between the nations is both the cause and the effect of the general feeling of insecurity. But it was 'eft to the third speaker, Mr. R. S. Hudson, a rising young Conservative M.P., to point out the real trouble, namely, that armament preparations are not intolerable, for the facts prove that taxpayers are prepared to go any lengths in order to obtain what they still call national security and what is, in fact, a form of suicide.
Lord Cecil was in the chair. His introductory address was, however, rather disappointing. It was difficult to believe that this was the same man who had so convincingly pointed to the Way of Peace in all his public speeches and writings (collected in book form and recently published by Philip Allan). Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, our senior soldier, was the first speaker, and he met with a great meek. tion. It is a great thing indeed that such a man should feel so strongly and express so frankly his sense. of the futility and horror of war—but many of us could not help feeling that it was not quite the same thing as if a British Admiral were occupying that position. Sir William—apart from one dan- gerous remark about America—made the sort of speech that carries more conviction than any of the more eloquent pacifist rhetoric. It was a plain, blunt statement of the money and lives thrown away in the Great War—a frank recognition of the fact that General Staffs and Embassies, all over the world, are still proceeding on the assumption that nothing can stop " the next war," and, in conclusion, a plea for definite civil and ministerial control over national policy—in other words, a challenge to each nation's leaders to prove their statesman- ship.
Professor P. J. Noel Baker spoke next, awl quoted statistics, not as the previous speaker had done, of armaments in motion, but of national armaments to-day in time of peace. He pointed out that the comparison with 1913 that is commonly Made gives an entirely false impression, because the year 1913-14 was pretty well saturation point," the climax of that frenzied competition which increased expenditure on armaments all over the world by 33 per cent. in four years. All this was very depressing, and there was general approval for Mr. Hudson's reminder that the way to peace was not paved with mathematical minutiae. He rightly stressed the importance of the burden of disarmament, and told us how the authorities in Germany had solved their problem by careful reorganization, which meant finding fresh employment for the 40,000 men formerly employed in Krupps' works at Essen.
The other meetings of the Conference were occupied with discussions on the Draft Disarmament Treaty, Air and Chemi- cal Warfare, and the Consequences of the Pact, and the speakers included Sir Herbert Samuel, Professor Gilbert Murray, Mr. W. Arnold Forster, Sir Frederick Maurice, and Lord Halsbury. It was perhaps significant, however, that all the Times considered worthy of mention in the discussion on the Consequences of the Pact was the Chairman's suggestion that henceforth the War Office should be renamed the Army Department !
AMERICA AND PEACE.
National armaments are undoubtedly the clearest index of the distrust and jealousy still prevailing among the nations, but we should remember that they are part and parcel of the whole individualist system which with the coming of the League of Nations and the Renunciation of War should, and must be, superseded. Only by perfecting the new system of international co-operation, based on •the same principle as that which has maintained peace in any civilized community at any time, can we hope for peace among the nations.
A distinguished American publicist, Mr. Frank H. Simonds, wrote a book some time ago with the title, how Europe made Peace without America. We have- to admit not only that Europe has- not made peace without America, but also that she simply cannot do it. That is the measure of the importance of the present discussions in the American Senate.
W. HORSFALL CARTER..
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