THE " NATIONAL DECLARATION" CONTROVERSY
By the EARL OF LYTTON
THE debate in the House of Commons on the subject of the private manufacture of arms, and the Peace Ballot organized by the League of Nations Union and other Societies,. have brought into prominence the attitude of the country towards the League of Nations and some of its problems.
The Ballot has already served one of the objects for which it was organized. It has aroused great interest throughout the country. It has made people think, and caused them to consider whether they have any opinion on the matters raised by the five* questions, and if so what that opinion is. It has, of course, also aroused some controversy, but this is all to the good. Controversy is a sign of interest ; it also ensures publicity. There is nothing that the organizers of the Ballot can desire more than that their questions should be debated up and down the country, discussed in the Press, and argued in every place where people meet together. It has always been somewhat of a handicap to the organization of League opinion in this country that there is no organized opposition to it. Opposition is stimulating and strengthening. It is much easier to contend with opposition than with indifference. The prominence given to the Ballot by the debate in the House of Commons, and by those newspapers which are trying to discredit it, will at least ensure that more attention is paid to it than would otherwise have been the case.
Another service rendered by the debate in the House of Comnions is that it has brought out the difficulties raised by the fourth question in the Ballot and shown that it is easier to point out the evils of the private manufacture of arms than to find a remedy. The debate was undoubtedly interesting and will help those who read it to test their own opinions on the question. Sir John Siincin. stated very clearly and forcefully the difficulties that would be created by making the manu- facture of 'arms a Government monopoly, and yet the effect of his speech taken as a whole was only to exasperate those whoin he was trying to convince. This was because it was the speech of a man who did' not want to agree with those who differed from him and was even prepared to misrepresent both their motives and their methods in order to discredit them. Such a speech is an everyday experience in party politics, because a party politician rarely tries to convince his political opponents ; he merely -seeks to discredit them for the satisfaction of his own followers. But the tragedy of Sir John's speech was that the subject on which he was speaking, although introduced by the official Opposition, was not a party issue, and among those whom he was misrepresenting were people whose co-operation and support the traditions 'of his own political life should have made .him desire to retain. If he had shown any understanding of, or sympathy with, the feelings of those who are shocked by the knowledge that private individuals derive personal gain from the sale of munitions of war, and that com- mercial firms should encourage war or obstruct peace
'1 (1). Should. Great Britain remain a member of the League of Nations ?
(2) Are yOu in favour of an all-round reduction in armaments by international agreement (3) Are you in favour of an all-round abolition of national military and naval aircraft by international agreement ? (4) Should the manufacture and sale of armaments for private profit be prohibited by international agreement
(5) Do you consider that if a nation insists on attacking another the other nations should combine to compel it to atop by (a)-Economic and non-military measures ?
(b) If necessary, military measures ? for the sake of profit, his exposition of the difficulty of finding a remedy would have been much more convincing.
The subject is difficult and complicated, but it is one about which a great deal more is known than is generally supposed, and also one on which feeling is so strong that it is not wise to ignore or belittle it. The evils of the present system are so great that some remedy must be found. It may be by more effective State control of private manufacture, or by a greater measure of State manufacture. The precise method must, of course, be determined by the Government of the day in consultation with the Governments of other countries. But the people who are impatient for something to be done feel they are more likely to get it done by a Government that wants to do it than by one which does not want any change. That is the justification for the inclusion of this question in the Ballot. Even if every elector were to return an affirmative answer to the fourth question, it would still rest with the Government to determine the best way of giving effect to their wishes. But a large affirmative vote is much more likely to get something done than a large negative one, and this consideration will no doubt weigh with those who may have doubts what answer they should give.
Sir Austen Chamberlain's letter in The Times of November 12th is another example of the wrong method of differing from one's friends. On this question of the private manufacture of arms Sir Austen differs from the majority of his colleagues on the Executive Committee of the League of Nations Union, and it is unfortunate that other duties should have prevented him from attending its meetings when the terms of the National Declaration were under discussion. There is a great deal of truth in his contention that the title which heads the Ballot Paper—" Peace or War "7—sUggesti that an affirmative answer to the questions would be a vote for peace, and a negative answer would 'be a vote for war. The title may be open to this criticism, but a moment's reflection must convince anyone that such was not the intention of the organizers. The Society of Friends, for instance, and those who share their views, will almost certainly return a negative answer to question 5 (b) on the subject of military sanctions, yet no one would suggest that such an answer would be a vote for war. The Friends themselves would in fact contend that an affirm- ative answer to this question would be a vote for war in certain contingencies.
The meaning of the Ballot paper is : " In the great issue of Peace and War with which the League of Nations is concerned what is your opinion on the following questions "—and there is no indication that this is not clearly understood.
We may and should be as candid as possible with our friends in private, but to accuse them in public of issuing a fraudulent prospectus is hardly consistent with friend- ship.
The League of Nations Union is bound to be irritating at times to party politicians, because it is a non-party organization which puts defence of the League of Nations before any other political issue, whereas party politicians only regard support of the League as one of their many loyalties. But the Union has a great and growing mem- bership, and statesmen who wish the sincerity of their support of the League of Nations to be unquestioned should avoid trying to discredit in public the only organ- ization in the .country which seeks to serve the League first and all the time.
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