The Real Crisis
Of more immediate moment to the world is what Germany under Herr Hitler and his allies may contem- plate in the field of foreign politics. What is known of that so far is disquieting, and contemplation of it diverts attention to another theatre a great deal more important, if events and potentialities are: given their true weight, than Berlin. At Geneva the Disarmament Conference is in its most critical phase. Within a week or ten days we should know certainly whether it is to break down in disaster or still achieve some substantial success. The friends and foes of the Conference are at the moment strangely aligned. Germany is openly sabotaging it, and threatening once more to withdraw unless she gets her way on points of procedure on which the vote has already gone against her. Italy, for political reasons, is disposed to back the Germans. France—essentially a France of the Left—is the forefront of those who are striving for definite results. Great Britain is giving her warm support when the voice is the voice of the Foreign Office and tepid to chilly support when the Air Ministry represents the delegation. What the voice of the Cabinet is it is hard to discover, yet imperative to know. For in the Disarmament Conference issues are being debated— though the world realizes it little and appears to care about it less—on which all the political and economic
decisions of the immediate future must hang. . The truth of that is so plain that it hardly needs
demonstrating. The question is whether the world is to disarm or Germany to re-arm. If anyone ever doubted the intention of a German Government to profit by the failure of the Allied countries to make good their pledges, he would be little likely to doubt it with a Hitler adminis- tration in office. From that the sequence develops automatically. Germany re-arms. In face of that real or supposed menace even a Radical Government in France would have immediately to expand the national armaments. But, in fact, a Radical Government would fall immediately and M. Tardieu and M. Marin come in to rule in the Poineare tradition. The Little Entente could no more ignore the spectacle of a re-armed Germany than could France, while along another line of consequence Italy would, of course, increase her army and fleet and air force pari passe with the French bloc. What in the face of those developments would be the use of conven- ing any World Economic Conference at all ? In what atmosphere would it meet ? What results could it hope to achieve ? And what would an America obsessed with the idea of European extravagance on armaments say to debtors who came to crave indulgence in the midst of a new armaments race ? It is not disarmament merely, important as that is in itself, but the whole hope of a new economic start for the world, that is hanging in the balance at Geneva.
There is some excuse for the average British citizen if he shows small sign of realizing that fact, for the Cabinet which represents him shows as little. The critical ques- tion is the air. If Germany re-arms she is not going, for a dozen reasons, to lay down capital ships, She is un- likely to begin the construction of 'tanks or heavy artil- lery. She is certain to turn her attention immediately to the air, for she has skill and experience in aircraft construction at her disposal, and an abundant supply of pilots. Aircraft, moreover, are relatively cheap. Why has the office of Commissioner for Aviation been created for the militant Captain Goring ? Why has an air section been created in the German War Office.? These are questions that give the proposal for the total abolition of military aviation its overwhelming importance. That is in form and in fact a British proposal, which means, of course, that it is a Cabinet proposal. As it was put lorward in the.first instance by Mr. Eden it aroused hopes that at last this country, which had found itself unable to respond to the Italian lead early ,in the Conference, or the Hoover lead at a later date, or to align itself in any way with the French on the question of security, was giving the. Conference a lead in a matter far transcending in importance any naval or military or political problem which delegates have before them. The thrill of inspiration in Mr. Baldwin's November speech was recalled, and the fact that Mr. Baldwin, a prisoner either of his party or his personality, has never said a word on the subject of air warfare since, was forgotten.
Lord Londonderry's hot-and-cold speech at Geneva has helped to quicken sluggish memories, and set men asking further what recognition the Prime Minister has ever betrayed of the magnitude of the issues with- which his Under-Secretaries are grappling at this moment = at Geneva. The Germans, in what may very well be calculated perversity, are going much too far in demanding that the principle of the abolition of military aviation shall be decided before the question• of the internationalization of civil aviation is taken up ; but our own delegates are erring hardly less in the opposite direction in their insistence on seeing every conceivable
objection to internationalization removed before they seriously consider the abolition of military machines. There is small realization anywhere of the utter disparity, both in quality and in magnitude, of the rival consider- ations involved. If military aviation survives, a large part of European civilization will infallibly be obliterated, it may be sooner, it may be later, by blasts of destruction unimaginable in their terrors. If civil aviation is internationalized, some trade interests may suffer, some check may be set on initiative and the pro- gress of invention. There is no reason why it should. But suppose it did ? Suppose, inconceivably, that the achievements of civil aviation should remain static at the point they have reached to-day ? Could a world that fared well enough without flying at all till a generation ago not survive sudi a tragedy ? Yet we arc told in all seriousness that air warfare must continue because there are financial or industrial objections to internationalizing civil aviation. Other issues, of course, arise, chief of them the necessity of preventing civil machines from being put to military uses. Without the collective action of which sections of opinion in this country are so suspicious there can be no effective check. But the Germans are right at least in this, that so long as attention is concentrated mainly on the obstacles the great essential will never be achieved. If it is not, that means the end of the Disarmament Conference and the death-knell of the Economic Conference is sounded in advance. The weight of this country thrown resolutely into the right scale can still avert that supreme disaster,
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