TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE WAY OF EUROPEAN PEACE
THE results of Mr. Austen Chamberlain's visit abroad are significant but not wholly encouraging. To all outward seeming the Protocol is dead. We put it thus guardedly because it is not always possible to say at what exact moment death has occurred. Nor, indeed, is it easy to define death. All you can say for certain is that death is _a condition which prevents the restoration of Iife. Drowned persons have experienced " death " ; and yet it often happens that artificial respiration restores life to them hours after the drowning. The situation with regard to the Protocol may be expressed by saying that the British Empire has rejected it and believes that it is really dead, but that M. Herriot and M. Briand believe that life can be restored to it and have actually expressed their intention of applying artificial respiration at the meeting of the League in September. For our part we can go so far with the French statesmen as to say that probably parts of the Protocol—at least some of its definitions—will be revived. For if any pact guaranteeing security is brought up for discussion at Geneva in September it will involve such matters as compulsory arbitration and the definition of " aggression." Now, these were the very subjects discussed when the Protocol was in the making and definitions of aggression became a very important part of the text. To that extent the ghost of the Protocol will haunt the League even if the Protocol does not again clothe itself with flesh and blood.
In the circumstances Mr. Chamberlain could not have done otherwise than to reject the Protocol. All the British Dominions are against it for well-known reasons. They say (and the British Government in general agrees with them) that it would increase rather than reduce the possibilities of war. It would impair national sovereignty and Parliamentary control in all the countries pledged to it, since it would place armed forces in effect under the control of the League. It would make much more instead of less difficult the revision of grievances and doubtful boundary lines. It would expose Great Britain to the danger she would specially dread—though it is only a shadowy danger—of having to apply economic sanctions to the United States at the call of some Latin Republic of South America. Finally, it might well favour the aggressor as against the victim when war was threatening by requiring both parties to stand their ground until a settlement was reached. Mr. Austen Chamberlain elaborated this last danger very persuasively. In the nature of things, he pointed out, an aggressor would have made careful preparations and the victim would have made little or none ; yet, if the attempt at settlement failed the aggressor would be able immediately to spring upon his victim with all the advantages which he had prepared for himself.
The only member of the Council who stood out resolutely against Mr. Chamberlain's arguments was France. She ardently wants the Protocol because she believes that it would make permanent all the present frontiers. She desires nothing better. By ingenious dialectic she has tried to make it appear—and has certainly convinced hsrself—that the Protocol is such an implementing of the Covenant that anyone who resists the . Protocol is an enemy of the League of Nations. That, of course, is not so. Some of the fastest friends of the League are the stoutest enemies of the Protocol. Personally, though we have always perceived and admitted the defects and dangers of the Protocol, we 'regard it with great respect as the most scientific effort yet made to provide for security. As Mr. Ramsay MacDonald saw, France cannot be expected to " play up " unless she is satisfied about her security. It is true that she has odd ideas of what security is. For instance, she would rather extract from her friends at the price almost of a breach of friendship some written document than enjoy that kind of security which Englishmen think would be much safer—the kind which comes from the general esteem and good will of those who work with her. Security, however, in some sort must admittedly be provided. It would have been disastrous if Mr. Chamberlain when turning down the Protocol had suggested nothing in its place. That would have been to throw us back two or three years in our slow progress towards peace. It would have created a very bad atmosphere and would actually have made plausible the present French pretence that Great Britain is really an enemy of the League of Nations.
Mr. Chamberlain's thesis was that the Covenant must remain the norm and criterion of any right policy and that it is quite capable of being supplemented by " special arrangements to meet special needs." He very properly added that guarantees must be purely defensive. From this point of view the German proposal that France and Germany, with the assistance of other Powers, should guarantee each other's frontiers holds the field. It is, in our judgment, a plan of considerable promise. In fact, it belongs to the order of plans which alone hold out any promise of peace, because it makes Germany a consenting party. The German offer, of course, does not by any means satisfy France, because Germany is unwilling to guarantee the Polish frontier. But, after all, why should she guarantee it ? Poland has absorbed districts which are a good deal more German than Polish and she has absorbed other districts which are entirely Russian. It is difficult to understand the state of mind of a nation which seriously wishes to hold on to districts populated by civilized and capable inhabi- tants in the face of the declared ill will of those inhabitants. Such a policy is bound to be a source of weakness. Although Germany would promise to refrain from altering her eastern frontier by force and would agree to submit disputes to arbitration, she is not willing to go so far as to guarantee the permanency of that frontier. Nevertheless, for the sake of entering into a settlement for security that would satisfy France she would obviously make certain renunciations. For instance, by guaranteeing per- manently the eastern frontier of France she would for- swear all thoughts of ever winning back Alsace-Lorraine. It seems to us that if the German offers about her eastern frontier are sincerely intended they are good enough. Germany has treaties with Switzerland and Sweden similar to that which she proposes to negotiate with France, and they have operated to everybody's satisfaction. For France, of course, the guaranteeing of her present eastern frontier would mean, the abandonnient of all idea of making the Rhine her future frontier—but that river-frontier is only a soldier's dream.
The principle of regiOnal pactS has already been accepted by the League in the case of the Little Entente. There is nothing in it repugnant to the Covenant: It is probably the only practical way to peace. The. pact which is to give France security, and so save her from her haunting fears and make her a quiet neighbour, must include Germany. That is essential. Again, it should be understood at once that Great Britain will never pledge herself to maintain doubtful frontiers between Poland and Germany and Russia. Our pledge would apply only to the eastern frontier of France, though we would enter into any rational scheme for keeping the peace elsewhere. There must be no nonsense about British frontiers being, as a Pole said recently, " on the Vistula."
It is also essential that Germany should be a member of the League. The Council of the League has just addressed a reasonable and gracious intimation to Germany that her presence in the Council is desired, and we earnestly hope that the first act of the Council when it meets again in September will be to receive Germany. Germany, of course, must not be allowed to make conditions ; she must come in on the same terms as everybody else. Perhaps the best thing that has happened during the past few days is that France has at last plainly declared her willingness that Germany should join the Council.
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