Naval Disarmament
IT HE international relations of Naval Powers, especi- ally of the United States and ourselves, loom large agahi this week among world politics, and action concern- ing them is moving apace. We recorded last week the introduction into the House of Representatives at Washington of the comparatively modest Naval Bill. This modesty was due to the very strong representations Of public opinion that had been made by all kinds of societies and individual spokesmen, to the realization of the terrific expenditure with which the Big Navy Party would saddle their country if they had their way, and most of all to common sense and good will. These last persuaded Ainericans that though Great Britain's concession of naval supremacy was natural and right in American eyes, yet the vaunting of an overwhelming superiority to every other nation on the seas looked a little incongruous beSide American declarations of a love of peace, to say nothing of preachments to Europe on the folly of squabbling, on the wrongheadedneas of looking to force as the principal instrument of policy.
The Chairman of the House Sub-Committee on Naval Appropriations, who must have studied the prods- verbal= of the Limitation Conference at Geneva as closely as anyone, spoke last week very sympathetically of the British proposals made there and went on to suggest that, as the Conference failed over the cruisers, the nations whO signed the Washington Treaty might turn their attention again to capital ships and, as a step towards disarmament and economy, consider the reduction of the numbers of capital ships allocated to each Power. Before Mr. French uttered this very sensible suggestion, H.M.'s Government must have eicogitated their sugges- tions which on ,Saturday last at Geneva 'were presented by Lord Cushendun to the representatives on the Prepar- atory Commission of the Disarmament Committee of the other four Powers that signed the Washington Treaty. These suggestions are not entirely new because the First Lord of the Admiralty had the gist of them in his pocket at Geneva last yeak. They were not discussed there because the delegates from the United States were not empowered to consider any advance in the matters over which agreement was reached at Washington in 1922, but only the outstanding question of cruisers. The suggestions were for a reduction, not of numbers as Mr. French suggested, Nit of size, setting the maximum tonnage at 30,000 instead of 85,000 ; reducing the maximum size of guns from 16 inches to 18.5 inches ; and prolonging the life before replacement of capital ships from twenty to twenty-six years. So much for the United States and Great Britain. But there is a third significant event to chrouicle although at present we can only conjecture its results.- On Thursday, March 22nd, the 'French delegate at Geneva asked the" Preparatory Commission to hold- its hand in certain directions because the technical experts were successfully dealing with some delicate matters with their Governments behind them. This has been understood at Geneva, probably rightly, to indicate that the Naval adviser's there have" found at last some means of relating the strengths of navies in spite of the old disagreement about reckoning by the sum total of tonnage or by numbers and tonnage in different classes. If this should mean the removal of difficulties which have kept France and ourselves from having 'a sound basis for discussion, it is a welcome event to set beside the American and British indications of willingness to go forward.
The hopes of advance which we allowed ourselves to express last week are so encouragingly confirmed that we actually begin to warn ourselves against haste. Thew are certain questions which mint be tackled quickly, if at all, by the experts. For instance, in the Washington Treaty the Rules for Replacement set down the date of laying down keels of new construction as not earlier than " ten years from November 12th, 1921." • But we do not want to see any haste in summoning anything like a second formal Geneva Conference for Limitation. Apart from other reasons the preoccupation of the United States in her Presidential Election 'would endanger the clear thinking and single-minded attention that we should expect of her in discussion, and the election, for all we know, might endanger the continuity of her policy. Time can be very profitably spent in cultivating under- standing and good will. There is, for instance, a great need Of comprehension between us on what is called in America " the freedom of the seas." We have more than once hinted for the need of coming to an understanding about it, because we believe that Americans have been persuaded that the Allies in' the War got advantages to which they had no right over the United States Govern- ment before May, 1917. They do not know the lines of discussion between the Governments, nor do they realize that the visible operation of the blockade, the examination of American cargoes, was due to arrangements, contracts for valuable consideration, made with shipowners and not with the United States Government. The uninstructed mass of Americans remember that their oversead trade was controlled and they resent that recollection. In theory the Jurists at The Hague are the right Court to make a pronouncement upon the matter, but we should feel a good deal of trepidation about any hard and fast pronouncement unless it were, in effect, a codification of Law as made in the American and British Prize Courts. If it were that, we should feel entirely satisfied. Those Courts have built up the best possible International Law of Blockade and scarcely any discord exists between them.
The history books read in the United States are a sub- ject on which we can not enter now. We will risk a charge of being intimidated hy the Mayor of Chicago. But we should not expect to find ourselves disagreeing with any that held up to admiration the work of the Fed- eral Prize Courts during the Civil War, or even during earlier conflicts in 'which we ourselves were concerned.
Then on our side we may be accused of not under- standing the Monroe Doctrine. We can only say that every nation that signed the Covenant of the League accepted the Doctrine, and we must be given credit for that. It is reasonable on the other side to set against what America expects of us in connexion with the Monroe Doctrine our commitments under the Covenant. Blockade is there recognized but blockade of an American Republic could only be undertaken with due consideration for the Doctrine. Is it unfair to ask the United States to agree with members of the League that both parties should respect the duties that the other has undertaken ? It would not be demanding something for nothing if we asked the United States to respect' a blockade declared by the League against an " aggressor " nation while "we respect the Monroe Doctrine. No discussions in the immediate future would be more useful than any which would impress the world with the notion that the threat of war will find the great naval Powers united in a 'determination to enforce International Law upon the 'High Seas, and this we hold to be entirely compatible with the obligations undertaken by those who signed -the Covenant of the League or who pronounced and uphold the Monroe Doctrine.
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