THE FUTURE OF THE LEAGUE : H. BASIC PRINCIPLES
By THE EARL OF LYTTON, K.C.
[The next article in this series is by Monsieur Pierre Cot, who has been Minister .for in several French Governments, and has constantly represented his country at Genera. Ile will state the view of the Left-Centre in France in regard to reform of the League of Nations.] ADDRESSING the Women's Conservative Association in the Albert Hall last week, Mr. Baldwin said:- " If you find that an instrument will not do what you want, it does not mean that your desire is impossible of achievement. What it does mean is that you and all those who used that instrument without success must sit down and examine the instrument, modify, strengthen, alter it, embody in it, if you can, such changes as will make it effective for your purposes." This is very sound and wise, but the metaphor requires some qualification. If you have used an axe to cut down a stone wall and find that the axe is blunted and the stone wall still stands, it would be Well to change your instrument. But, if in using an axe to cut down a tree you miss the tree and wound your own foot, the fault is not with the axe ; and what is called for is not a change of instrument, but greater skill in using it..
If the operation of the Covenant during the last fifteen years is examined carefully and impartially, it will be found that its failure is not attributable to any error in drafting, but to inadequate application of its provisions. It is not the instrument which has proved faulty, but the people in whose hands it has been placed. Tile remedy, therefore, is not to re-write the Covenant, but to learn how to use it. If the League consisted only of States that understood the Covenant in the same sense, and were prepared to use it as its authorS meant it to be used it would be found an efficient instrument of peace. Inadequately understood, and inefficiently applied, it has proved a dangerous instrument.
The essential condition of the system of collective security—or, as Sir Norman Angell has more accurately called it, collective defence—is the certainty that an aggressor will meet with overwhelming resistance. In practice; there has been uncertainty on this point from the beginning, and, as the result of the latest experience, this uncertainty has developed into certainty that, if the aggressor is a strong Power, there will be no resistance.
The necessity for a reform of the Covenant is finding expression at the present time in letters to the Press and in debates in Parliament, and Mr. Baldwin has said that the Cabinet is devoting serious thought to the pro- blem. " We will try again," he said, " to see where our scheme has gone wrong and where we can accomplish it. To that I pledge my word." The first essential in this review of the League system is to realise the cause of the failure. It did not begin with Italian aggression in Abyssinia, or even with Japanese aggression in Manchuria. Confidence in the efficacy of collective defence began to 13.2.• shaken before it was ever put to the test. It began with the refusal to ratify the Treaty of Mutual Assistance and the Geneva Protocol of 1924, which were the first serious attempts of the League to enable its members to " make the cause of one the cause of all." Further evidence of the growing un- certainty regarding the operation of the Covenant ' was provided by the arguments by which the Treaty of Locarno was defended, by the repeated statements of British Statesmen that Great Britain was not prepared to fight for the defence of distant countries where her interests were not affected, and by the multiplication of separate non-aggression pacts, none of which would have been necessary if faith in the operation of the Covenant had been strong. The failure to defend China and Abyssinia from aggression only showed that the want of confidence in collective defence was justified.
If the cause of the failure is realised, and the fact that responsibility for that failure is shared by all the States members of the League alike, the right remedies may be found. The first object to be sought, as Sir Alfred Zimmerli pointed out in The Spectator last week, is " a like-minded Society." No League can be effective if its members have different conceptions of its object. The framers of the Covenant designed • an instrument. which would abolish war and provide an alternative procedure for settling disputes bet ween nations. It rested upon two obligations which were imposed upon its members : (1) collective resistance to force ; (2) acceptance of collective judgement in the settlement of disputes. The faithful fulfilment of these two obligations is the only method by which war can be eliminated between nations. The purely consul. tative body contemplated by Lord Ponsonby and Lord Lothian can never achieve this object.
The best existing example of successful collective de- fence is provided by the British Commonwealth of Nations. Although Lord Ponsonby claims that he is always right, he is clearly wrong is asserting that the defence of that community does not rest upon force, that it " contains none of those rigid, automatic, collective obligations " which he dislikes in the Covenant of the League of Nations. It contains them all, and because no one doubts that aggression upon any part of the British Empire would involve the immediate automatic application of the collective force of the whole, its defence is effective. If the obligations inherent in Articles 10 and 16 of the Covenant were eliminated from the British Commonwealth of Nations, it would immediately break up into a number of hostile, suspicious, armed communi- ties, and the weaker portions of it would fall an easy prey to other powerful and ambitious States.
The component parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations recognise the advantages of the community to which they belong. They do not regard their col 1(.et i obligations as involving them in greater risks of war ; they know that they constitute their only guarantee of peace. As Sir Alfred Zimmerli said last week, our object should be to widen this Association by admitting to it other nations which arc prepared to accept the same obligations and reap the same benefits. Mr. Baldwin said that the changes necessary in the League arc such as will make it " at last what it was hoped to be in the beginning—a universal League." The experience of the last fifteen years, however, would seem to show that for many years to come a League that is both universal and effective is an unattainable ideal. There is more hope of securing a limited League that will effectively preserve peace in Europe, and, when this has been found to bring real benefits to its members, there will be a better chance of extending its membership to other parts of the world.
To sum up, the requirements of the moment seem to be : (1) A clear understanding of the objects of the League as an instrument for the prevention of war.
(2) A-clear definition-of the precise obligations of its meml:ers. (3) A limitation of its membership to those States which are prepared, in return for the benefits secured, to fulfil all the obligations so de- fined.
Peace, like all other precious things, can only be had at a price, and, though it may sound a paradox, a League of Nations can only maintain peace if all its members are prepared to fight collectively for it. To say that sanctions mean war is only a half-truth. It is only the uncertainty of sanctions that means war. The inevitability of sanc- tions means peace, and peace cannot be made certain by any other method. Every nation accepts the obligation to fight -for its -own defence, and, if its defensive force is strong, it secures peace. Collective -defence is only preferable to national defence if collective defence is known to be stronger than any possible national aggres- sor, and if the application of it is as certain as national defence would be. The remedies for the past failure of the League must be sought in all humility and all sincerity, but they will not be found unless the same principles which guided the framers of the Covenant are kept in view.
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