THE AMERICAN SENATE AND THE TREATY. T HE discussions on the
Peace Treaty with Germany which are taking place in the Foreign Relations Committee of the American Senate are like nothing that could occur in Great Britain. Here the Treaty-making power is vested in the Executive without any direct control by Parliament. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs negotiates a Treaty, and if he has the confidence of tha Prime Minister and the Cabinet and understands his business it goes through. No doubt there is a tendency for Parliament to demand and to get more control, and we were. interested to notice the other day that the Prime Minister spoke—whether by design or carelessly we do not know— of the ratification of the House of Commons being "necessary " for the Treaty with Germany. But in the United States the Constitution has arranged things quite otherwise. Every Treaty requires the• ratification of the Senate, and, as we have over and over again pointed out, the clue. to all President Wilson's difficulties in his. own country is• that a third plus one of the Senators who are present when the voting takes place are sufficient to negative a Treaty. In other words, the American Senate is not only definitely recognized under the Constitution as a principal in the: business of Treaty-making, but is given a remarkable range of authority. Mr. Wilson, in our opinion, therefore made a mistake. when he went to Paris as the sole representative of the United States. He might have forestalled.. opposition by recognizing the Treaty-making function of the Senate and taking with him as advisers or assessors some of his political opponents as well as his political, friends. As he did not do so, we cannot be wrong in tracing to his omission much of the intensity of the opposition to the Treaty which is now developing in America. The discussions over there are well worth watching, indeed. must be watched. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole Treaty is in danger. Although we have never been great believers in the more ambitious principles of a League of Nations, we recognize, now that those principles have been accepted, that it is necessary for all men of goodwill to do their level best to make the League a success., What, then, should we think if the United States were to decide not to try to work a sclaeme of which Mr. Wilson. himself was the chief inspirer, if not the author ? Wecannot believe that in the end this will happen.
We are very glad to see that Mr. Wilson has assented to the suggestion that what are called interpretative resolution& should be tacked on to the Treaty. We have often supported this suggestion as the best solution. The Senate would not, in this case, alter the text .of the Treaty, but would make annotations declaring that they read such-and-. such a clause in such-and-such a sense. It might even be that this raethod would be really helpful and save trouble in future. It certainly could do little harm. But the American critics of the Treaty have gone much further. than this. The Foreign Relations Committee have rejected entirely the sense of the Shantung clause. They have advised the Senate, who as a whole of course have yet .to debate the Treaty, to reverse the arrangement which wait come to between Japan and the Peace Conference. It is a very serious step. When the debate comes on in the. Senate, however, we expect that the friends and half-friends of the Treaty will show by their votes that the Committee, have gone too far. At the moment there is such political confusion in America that it would be useless to prophesy. Enough to say that at the time when we write the extreme critics of the Treaty have been scoring even more rapidly, than they themselves expected. Washington can never have been so inundated with various and rival petitioners as it is now—not even,when, the office-seekers assemble to make their claims to office• at the beginning of a new Presidential reign. Lithuanians, Letts, Esthonians, Greeks, Albanians, oversee negroes, Persians, Syrians, Egyptians Hindus, representatives of the small nations of Central Europe, and—need we say ?Irishmen, flood the hotels and lodging-houses. They all want their causes to be laid before the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate. It is stated in the Times that a deputation has even been sent by some Scottish Home Rulers—surely an example of the " eldest oyster " leaving the oyster-bed when one would not have expected him to do so. We do not read, by the way, of the presence of any delegations from Hayti and San Domingo, which are now ruled by American military forces, or from the Philippines or from Cuba. Yet all these countries have recently begged the attention of the United States to their grievances, real or unreal. The whole scene is an amazing and bewildering paradox. The critics of the Peace Treaty declare that they will never consent to their country being entaLgled in the affairs of the outside world. But the outside world, white, black, and yellow, presses in upon them, is received with courtesy, and enjoys the gratification of having its business endlessly discussed. The non-interferers are up to the neck in the task of interfering. It is very confusing ; but possibly there is a subtle ulterior design to show how undesirable such conditions are, and to prove by an object-lesson that they ought not to be made a rule of life by the Peace Treaty.
Meanwhile the Foreign Relations Committee are actively making textual alterations in the Treaty. We do not ourselves see how these alterations can be adopted by the Senate, as the Treaty is all of a piece—the Covenant instituting the League of Nations, above all, is embedded in it, and cannot be detached without destroying the whole. Any single textual alteration would probably cause vast complications. Take the Shantung arrangement, for example. By 8 votes to 7 the Foreign Relations Committee have taken away the old German rights in Shantung fromJapan, to whom the Peace Conference gave them, and have conferred them on China. They have done this by the simple expedient of saying in effect : " Wherever thee word ' Japan' occurs read China.' " Unfortunately Germany has signed and ratified the Treaty assigning Germany's pre=war rights in Shantung to Japan. It would seem, therefore, that a new Treaty between America and Germany would be necessary. The Allies could not consent to this without tearing up their own Treaty. Fancy taking on the business of making the Peace Treaty all over again I Let us not deceive ourselves—it would have to be a really fresh Treaty, for the present Treaty is a `structure of fine balances; and if -one balance or check were removed the rest would not hold together. And meanwhile there would be no Treaty between America and. Germany ; that is to say, technically Germany and America would remain at war. It is not as though the Senate Committee had merely said that they would not consent to the Shantung part of the Treaty ; they want to have a Shantung clause, but they want it reversed.
Mr. Wilson's personal conference with the Foreign Relations Committee was intensely interesting. He explained that his ideas for a League of Nations were derived in the first place from •Lord Phillimore and secondly from General Smuts. He declared that there had been no British dictation, and that he himself was as responsible as anybody else for themuch-debated Article X. which requires all members of the League to guarantee " as against external aggressions the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League." But, say many members of the Committee in so many words : This is terrible l It commits America -permanently to fighting battles on foreign soil for interests with which she has nothing whatever to do. Moreover, it takes away the power of declaring war from Congress and hands it over to a Council on which we shall have only a modicum of representation." " No," says the President in reply, " there is no legal obligation. The whole thing is a matter of morality and' conscience. True, morality and conscience are more than law ; but let us be explicit— they are not the same thing as law." Such a philosophical retort does not help matters at all with his critics. We see and sympathize with their alarm, but then we cannot help thinking that it will come home to the leaders of American thought----men of honour as well as of sense— that it is not possible for America to enjoy the fame of having led the way in creating the League and instituting mandates, and at the same time to sustain the reputation of refusing to have anything to do with them. " Mandates are excellent for every one else, but not for us. We will not bear the burden which we created," is scarcely a defen sible argument. Had it not been for American feeling on the subject, we think we may fairly say, Great Britain, with all her age-long experience ofgovermng subject races, would not have consented to the rather galling principle of mandates at all.
As to Mr. Wilson's statement about the secret Treaties, we confess to being much puzzled. He said, as Mr. Lansing had previously said, that when he issued his Fourteen Points he was unaware of the existence of any secret Treaties—he was referring to the secret Treaties which Japan made with Great Britain and France in 1917. Those Treaties provided that Japan was to have the rights not only in Shantung but in the Pacific Islands north of the Equator hitherto exercised by Germany. Mr. Lansing pointed out that he ought to have been told about these Treaties before he made his agreement with Viscount Ishii by which Chinese sovereignty was guaranteed. The Fourteen Points, however, were published in January,1918, and the text of the secret Treaties had been in numerous newspapers several weeks before. It will be remembered that they were issued to the whole world by Lenin and Trotsky towards the end of 1917. If we are to believe in Japanese good faith—and why should we not believe in it ? —the integrity of China is in any case assured, and the dispute about the secret Treaties will matter very little. Mr. Wilson himself says that he has no doubt about the rightness of Japanese intentions. But when all has been said, surely the very existence of anxiety in America about Japanese plans in China is an argument for the League of Nations. The first purpose of the League is tosee that a country in the comparatively weak position of China should not be victimized. To strike the weapons out of the hands of the League is to make more not less likely the very events which are feared in 'America.
Although the decisions of the Senate Committee have been hot and 'strong beyond expectation, the fight is only beginning. The President will tour the country, and the inevitably long debate in the Senate may entirely change the situation. Probably what is happening now is that the simple • desire which was plain enough m America a few months ago, to save the world from war and to recognize the sanctity of international contracts with the help of the League of Nations, is being overlaid and obscured by a litter of secondary and confusing issues. There is much statesmanship in America. It will assert Itself. The simple truth is that though the Peace Treaty is very far from perfect, it ought to be ratified as soon as possible because we are not likely to get a better. It is the resultant of an immensenumber of conflicting forces. Its ratification is necessary for the world to settle down, and, so far as we can judge, all the natural anxieties of Americans could be expressed and the Cause of those anxieties provided against by interpretative reservations, appendices, annotations, or whatever any one may please to call them.
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