The Reply to the United States
TAST Saturday the British reply to Mr. Kellogg's proposal of a Pact renouncing war was handed to the American Ambassador in London. It is an anxiously careful document and it covers the whole ground. Long thought had evidently been bestowed upon every sentence. The document has been variously interpreted, the United States regarding it as in effect an enthusiastic acceptance of the proposal and most of the French papers regarding it as an attempt to support the French case, and as a foreshadowing of the rejection of the proposal after long discussion. For our part we have no doubt whatever that Sir Austen Chamberlain is convinced that Mr. Kellogg's plan is by far the most hopeful thing which has emerged in the long era of con- fusion since the War, and that Great Britain would make the greatest mistake in her history if she did not now handsomely meet the United States and bring the draft Pact to a successful conclusion. This is the line which we expected Sir Austen to take, and we are deeply convinced that anyone who discovers another meaning in his words is deceiving himself.
In France there are two or three political writers— and these not the least experienced—who do not attempt to persuade themselves that because Sir Austen is a great admirer of France he therefore intends to try to save French policy whatever may happen to the American scheme. These two or three stand apart from the mass of their countrymen, who are indeed very slow to follow the significance of Anglo-American relations. Most Frenchmen think that when Englishmen and Americans bicker and say harsh things about each other they are on the point of a rupture. That very discerning French critic, M. Andre Siegfried, has pointed out again and again that it is characteristic of men with the Anglo-Saxon temper to spar without ceasing to be friends. Was it not Emerson who remarked that greatness does not appear in an Englishman until he quarrels ? M. Siegfried's warnings to his countrymen that Great Britain and the United States fundamentally mean to be friends not enemies, and that it is useless to try to play off the one against the other, have not been heeded. But it would be well for France if they were heeded now. For the truth is that the nations are at the parting of the ways. They have to choose between keeping the peace by means of a great and simple declaration of principle, or by means of a patchwork of expedients which imply war in the event of the machinery going seriously wrong. It is as certain as that light follows darkness that the English-speaking peoples are intent upon adopting the larger way.
Why, then, it may be asked, did Sir Austen write a comparatively long reply, which, for all its industry and ability, is a rigmarole, in answer to the very short question whether Great Britain would renounce war as an instru- ment of policy ? The explanation is twofold. First, Sir Austen is a man of scrupulous honor, and he shrank from the very thought of putting himself into such a position that some day his country might seem to be breaking a promise—not really breaking it, but seeming to break it. For example, he obviously turned over in his mind the Egyptian problem. He must have said to himself something like this : " Only the other day we were compelled, as a result of our pledges to the Powers, to threaten the Egyptian Government with compulsion. Suppose that such an emergency should occur again and our threat was disregarded and force had to be used. Americans would then say, ' Here is Great Britain, going to war in Egypt, although she solemnly promised she would never use war as an instrument of policy. What right has Great Britain to be in Egypt anyhow ? There's no need for her to be there. Her only need is her own desire. Her desire directs her policy. In fact, Great-Britain has torn up the Pact.' " Sir Austen, therefore, without actually naming Egypt indicated that Great Britain had vital interests abroad which she could not sacrifice in any event. He thought it right to make this perfectly clear before the Pact could be accepted. There were several other points round which his mind revolved with similar sensitiveness, but the vital interest of Great Britain in Egypt and the Suez Canal and British commitments under the Locarno Treaties were the chief ones. A man less careful might have smoothed away his doubts by reflecting, " America also has vital interests in the Caribbean and the Panama Canal. If her interests were challenged there she would, of course, use all her land and sea forces to repel the attack and would cite the Monroe doctrine as her justification with complete confidence that she was morally right. As Mr. Kellogg did not think it worth while to mention that the United States would go to war in such a case, in spite of her renunciation of war, but preferred to take the whole thing for granted, why should I go out of my way to make reservations in an exactly correspond- ing and equally obvious case ? "
All we can say is that Sir Austen's mind works in its own way, and though we might have preferred for many reasons a perfectly unadorned and unqualified acceptance we value his language as the natural expression of very honest thinking. Besides, the American and British methods of approach to a political subject are habitually so different that it would have been almost surprising if the Englishman had dropped his own method—the method of considering details before he commits himself to a general principle.
The second reason why Sir Austen safeguarded himself with many words is that he genuinely and quite rightly wanted to build a bridge for France. After all, the United States would be as ready as we are ourselves to admit that the scheme would be a poor thing if France remained outside. Sir Austen, as a true friend of France, has done his best to reconcile the French and American points of view, which may be taken as the extremes of patriotic cautiousness on one side and magnanimous simplicity on the other. We would repeat, however, that France will make a calamitous mistake if once again she refuses to be warned and believes that Sir Austen seriously contemplates taking her view as against that of the United States. It has long been plain to everyone who has eyes to see that the French and British outlooks are essentially different. France anchors herself to the Peace Treaties and would like to stereotype them so that they can never be changed. Great Britain has always been aware that there is need for review and revision, and as the years pass she becomes more rather, than less conscious of the, grievances that will have to be amended before peace can be said to rest upon the sure basis of contentment. No one desires more sincerely than we do that the wonderful and admirable civilization of the French people. should not fall out of step with those who are the pioneers of peace, but France can hardly expect the American Government to look upon the French military alliances with Poland and the Little Entente as things comparable in importance with a positive renunciation of war and therefore things suitable to be safeguarded in the actual body of the peace Pact. Of course, such, safeguarding might be- -provided in an addendum, but it is very doubtful whether the American Senate, which has practically complete control over foreign policy, would agree to that.
. The Pact is an ethical declaration. It does not deal in sanctions. It is conceived as an honourable pledge among nations deemed capable of behaving honourably. Mr. Kellogg must be as conscious as any other thinking man of the abnormal occasions upon which a nation driven to use force would be absolved by enlightened opinion all over the world. But he desires that the declaration should lose nothing of its point by a wordy dilution. Sir Austen's reply to this concept was perfectly designed for its purpose—which was to show that, though every rule has its exceptions, the rule proposed by Mr. Kellogg commends itself overwhelmingly to the heads and hearts of the British Empire.
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