Geneva
NOT for the first time, when the country has been puzzled by what it hears of international or other discussions, has Lord Grey uttered some words that at once strike the hearers as being the sensible thing to say. They may sound dispassionate and even rather cold, but are none the worse for that where there is any danger of heat. In regard to the naval discussions at Geneva he has said in effect : Leave the United States out of account in construction programmes if there is any difficulty in agreeing.
Lord Grey, as we should expect, refuses to blame the present Government for any failure to have yet reached a great success at Geneva. Nor does he make the mistake of attributing bellicosity to the naval experts. Even Lord Lee in a letter to the Times gave countenance, perhaps unintentionally, to the idea that narrow-minded professional experts might usurp the predominance of the representation by the civil power. More probably Lord Jellicoe and Admiral Field err on the side of ignoring all political views when giving the advice for which they are asked. If they did not rigidly stick to the technical side, they would probably be influenced by the non-naval view and would ask why bother about the United States Navy which we shall never fight : the Admiralty has never taken that navy seriously as a potential enemy and never will. But that is political reason, not technical facts. We have no complaint to make of our experts and certainly none of Mr. Bridgeman nor of Lord Cecil, the most experienced international negotiator that we have. They have taken throughout the right line. They have tried to find out what the agreement shall be ; not whether there shall be an agreement or no. And we are sure that it is not their fault if they are hampered by the apparent lack of any informal discussions before the first meeting.
That omission was much more likely to be due to the United States Government, owing to their com- parative inexperience of international negotiations. The harm done by starting some excellent scheme like this of President Coolidge and letting the world see a failure result is so great that we beg the United States not to be too proud to take advice from their best friends, who claim no greater merit, but greater experience. It is no fault in Americans that owing to their history they are somewhat as children in international politics. They are conscious in their hearts of innocence, but they do not like taking advice. And we are quite aware that those who do not offer it tactfully do not deserve to persuade them. For that reason we do not join in all that is said about President Coolidge and Mr. Kellogg staging at Geneva a by-play calculated to affect a presidential campaign or other domestic politics which are not our business ; and we do not pretend to understand the pervasive vigour of American party politics. But we may lay it down from experience that it is fatal to allow international negotiations to be influenced by any arriere pensee of domestic politics.
. There is another thing that we may say, though un- willingly. We gave to the United States full credit for initiating and carrying through. the Washington Confer- ence. Will the United States give us a little credit for the part we took ? After all, what was the act that stood out above all at that Conference ? It was Great Britain's renunciation of supremacy at sea. The race that has, rightly, or wrongly if you will, been bred up for ,generations to sing " Britannia rules the Waves," the statesmen who have been trained in such doctrines as that of the " two-power standard," waived British naval supremacy at the fresh call of ideals. Of course, economy was calling, too. But no nation ever gave up so much so quietly on account of cost alone : that would be to confess a mighty poor spirit. Lord Balfour represented us with a reticence that we should have liked still to share. John. " thought" that Uncle Sam " would understand." If John Bull was slow to understand the meaning of a civil war in which he was not directly concerned, was not he less to blame than Uncle Sam, who was directly concerned at Washington, who himself summoned the Conferencd at Geneva, and before whom all information is frankly laid ? We hate to ask for credit where it is not given spontaneously, but failure at Geneva will be serious fot the world, and we do claim as our due that the United States should give us credit for honest intentions, foie really wanting to see armaments generally reduced, and for not suggesting that we want cruisers or whatever it may be unless we have come to an honest conclusion, that we need them for proper ends. It is not, and Americans know that it is not, merely smug British coins placency that enables us to claim that British frigateS and cruisers have made the seas safe for American trade and the vessels of weaker nations upon their lawful, occasions. We do not like claiming this, but Americans) demand an answer when they ask why we want seventy' cruisers of varying size, draught and so on. We answer that British trade in food and other materials passes over longer sea-routes than any other nation's trade, and is more vital to the nation's existence : that H.M.'s Navy is not the fleet of England only, but the Navy of the British Empire, which has vastly more widely scattered needs and duties than have the United States, for all the good work they do in the Philippines, Sandwich Islands and Samoa. And by all the traditions of common ties and heritage and understanding of English-speaking races and by the record of the King's Navy, we claim that the United States shall believe that no British man-o'-war will be set to any task of which a good American will disapprove.
Against all this will they set the precision of the word " parity "? We have yielded to the principle of equality. We have said that we will build the minimum only that' we need, and, if they want as much, we will not grudge it, neither asking them to build less than us nor aiming at building more than they. And after having made these concessions we come to a conference table to discuss in • detail the limitations of size, number, " global " tonnage, tonnage of classes and so forth. Are these points on which to wreck a conference and set back the peaceful progress that we and they have at heart, and give the enemy cause to blaspheme ? We refuse to believe that the Geneva Conference will fail, because the United States must remain wedded to their interpretation of a word, " parity," or because they refuse to admit that they have learned more of the complications of the naval problems of the world than they knew when they devised formulw with which to enter the Conference.. Not to know how much there is to learn is the mark of youth, . whether in international negotiations or anything else. - Willingness to learn is a sign of growth and grace. For ten years the United States have been learning, and let us gratefully say, teaching too, in an intensive school of international politics. Need we now be driven to take Lord Grey's advice ? We want to co-operate with our
best friends as their best friends, ••
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