OURSELVES AND THE NEUTRALS
THE speech broadcast by Mr. Churchill last Satur- day, and the reactions in Japan against the removal by the Royal Navy of a score of Germans of military
age from a Japanese liner, have given the question of our relations with neutral countries a sharp and sudden relevance. No acute issues have been raised, but a situation is revealed which calls for considered and careful handling Such relationships, whether with Great Powers like the United States or Italy or Japan, or lesser countries like Holland and Belgium, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, are of the first importance. We are interfering drastically with the normal current of those countries' life and practice. That is inevitable and they accept it. A belligerent State is fully entitled under international law to cut off its enemy's trade by every means possible, and that necessarily involves stopping all trade channels passing through neutral countries. What is imperative, on grounds of expedi- ency, is that the inevitable interference with neutral trade shall be conducted with the maximum of courtesy and the minimum of inconvenience and delay.
Apart from these general questions stands the special question of Mr. Churchill, whose broadcast has met with so adverse a reception in neutral countries. No one can deny the right of the First Lord of the Admiralty to concern himself with questions of neutrality. It is the Royal Navy which raises all those questions in a practical form by its actions. But it is the Foreign Office which conducts negotiations with neutrals, and is called on to justify the Navy's acts. The two roles are distinct, and they should be kept distinct. It is as undesirable for the First Lord to diverge into the Foreign Secretary's preserve as vice versa. To say that is not by any means to endorse the criticisms that the Press of neutral countries has lavished on Mr. Churchill. His broadcast was a brilliant per- formance, as his broadcasts invariably are. He is unique in his power to inspire and invigorate through the microphone. But no Minister, however talented, should discuss foreign affairs in platform or broadcast speeches without ensuring that his words have the endorsement of the Foreign Secretary. One of the chief functions of the Foreign Office in war-time is to maintain intimate touch with neutrals. It knows exactly what their susceptibilities are and where there are corns that it is better not to tread on. That is knowledge essential to acquire and important to act on, but it goes for nothing if Ministers unconnected with the Foreign Office dis- regard it.
Narrowly interpreted, the references to neutrals in Mr. Churchill's speech were not merely non-controversial but of the nature of a truism. He simply asserted that if the neutrals combined to resist Germany they could resist her effectively, the alternative being to fall victims to her one by one. But the whole extended passage on the neutrals did undeniably wear the aspect of an appeal to neutrals to join the Allies in their own interests, and the suggestion that in holding aloof they were ignoring their duty under the Covenant of the League invited the quite legitimate enquiry how Powers like Britain and France interpreted their duty under the Covenant " against aggression and wrong " in the case of China and Czecho-Slovakia and Albania. The speech may have done no great harm, but it has plainly given con-
siderable offence in Italy and Belgium, Holland and Denmark and Switzerland and elsewhere. That is a definite disadvantage, and there is no countervailing benefit to set against it. It is not the first time, more- over, that a broadcast speech by Mr. Churchill has caused friction. An unguarded reference to Italy in his broadcast on November 12th had most unfortunate results. It is no disparagement whatever of Mr. Churchill's brilliant qualities to urge that the principle be established that when any Minister proposes to dis- cuss foreign relations in a public speech he should ascertain from the Foreign Secretary whether any of his intended remarks is, for any reason known to the Foreign Office, inadvisable. The idea that a Cabinet Minister may, as in this case, impart to the world his own reflec- tions, which are not, in their apparent implications, identical with Government policy, is beyond the com- prehension of foreign commentators.
In regard to neutrals generally two questions of almost equal importance arise—what is lawful and what is expedient. Though on certain points it is still fluid, international law in the matter of the treatment of neutrals by belligerents is in the main clearly defined, and there is no ground for the suggestion that Great Britain has at any point infringed it. Japanese indignation at the removal of twenty-one Germans of military age from the liner Asama Maru ' is quite unwarranted. The procedure followed perfectly well recognised rules. A German destroyer three weeks after the outbreak of war actually took from a Swedish steamer a number of British fishermen who had been saved from drowning in the North Sea, and this country registered no pro- test. But what has to be considered in every such case is whether the gain to the belligerent outweighs the irritation caused to the neutral. The flow of Germans from the United States to Germany via the Pacific and Japan is never likely to be great. Even if it ran altogether to a couple of thousand, that would be no very formidable accession to an army of three or four millions. It is essential that Great Britain should reserve her title to the fullest exercise of her rights under inter- national law, but it is by no means essential that she should actually exercise them in all cases. The gain and loss in the broadest sense must be dispassionately balanced.
In relation to no country is that more true than to the United States. For there is no country whose sympathies we have hoped to command, and have in fact commanded, in greater degree. But we must not misinterpret American feeling. It springs less from sentiment based on a common heredity and a common tongue than on a common hatred of all that Nazism stands for in the world. The amendment of the Neutrality Act, by no overwhelming majority, laid open the immense resources of the United States to the Allies. Without them our chances of victory would be sub- stantially diminished. Sir Edward Grey had the same situation to face in 1915. At that period he wrote: " The Navy acted and the Foreign Office had to find the argument to support the action ; it was anxious work. British action provoked American argument ; that was met by British counter-argument. British action preceded British argument ; the risk was that action might follow American argument." The action by America which Sir Edward Grey feared was an embargo on the export of munitions if Great Britain persisted at that juncture in declaring cotton contraband, and he learned later that his apprehensions had been well founded. No such major issue as that arises between us and America today, but nothing can cause more irritation to individuals than interference with mails, which is what is under discussion at this moment. It is quite true that while we search ships Germany sinks them, but that does not make the process of search any more palatable in itself. There must be no relaxation of any necessary and legitimate military precautions, but it is worth remembering that American opinion is habitually sensitive, that the isolationists are still strong and that political questions in a Presidential year need wise handling. It is as important to know when to waive legal rights as when to stand on them. This cannot be decided by rule-of-thumb.
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