A NAVAL CONFERENCE. A NOTHER step has been taken to usher
in the reign of reason in naval policy. On Wednesday, May 25th, the American Senate unanimously passed Mr. Borah's amendment to the Naval Bill in the following terms :— "That the President is authorized and requested to invite the Governments of Great Britain and Japan to send repre- sentatives to a conference which shall be charged with the duty of promptly entering into an understanding or agreement by which the naval expenditures and building programmes of each of the said Governments—to wit, the United States, Great Britain, and Japan—shall be substantially reduced annually during the next five years to such an extent and upon such terms as may be agreed upon ; which understanding or agree- ment is to be reported to the respective Governments for approval."
If the Conference should come to an agreement, as it cer- tainly ought to do, we shall have accomplished more than seemed possible only a few months ago. It is excellent that a formal proposal for a conference has come in the present circumstances from America. If such a proposal had come only from Britain no doubt America would have assented, but we could not have felt sure that she was coming into the conference convinced in advance that a reduction of armaments was necessary. As it is, America gives us that assurance. Another cause of satisfaction is that Japan is included in the proposed conference. We have continually pointed out that the Anglo-Japanese Treaty offered no threat of any kind to America, and that if that Treaty should be renewed the effect of it might even be to ease the strain between America and Japan. It would make Britain an intermediary, while it could not in any conceivable circumstances be used to help Japan in an attack upon America. Nevertheless, the fact remains that a good many Americans have been mistrustful of the Anglo- Japanese Treaty and have been unable to understand why it should exist if it is not directed against America. These things being so, a certain number of Americans would be dissatisfied with any conference in which Japan was not represented. They would say, after the conference: "Britain has made promises on her own account, and we daresay means them sincerely. But what about Britain in combination with her Ally ? Is she not under obli- gations to Japan? Has she shaken herself free from those obligations by merely promising at the conference to reduce her own shipbuilding programme? What we want to know is not what Britain says when she is speaking for herself alone, but what she will do when she is acting in conjunction with Japan." The fact that Japan has recently promised to modify her shipbuilding programme If other Powers come to an agreement gives us good hopes that she will join in the proposed conference with every intention of discussing the matter without prejudice, and of accepting a common-sense arrangement. The Washington correspondent of the Times, it is true, does not build very much on the resolution in the American Senate. He reminds us that a similar provision was made in the Naval Bill of 1916, and that the President could have acted on that if he had wished to do so. The correspondent admits, however, that the reaffirmation of the principle may have some moral effect. Meanwhile, he does not see much prospect of an appreciable reduction in the large vote for the American Navy. We do not share in that pessimism. It may be true that Mr. Harding suspects that a naval conference which conducted its dis- cussions more or less publicly and to the accompaniment of a continuous clamour from the Press of all the countries concerned would accomplish very little. But if this means that some kind of preliminary understanding arrived at by private conversation is required, by all means let us prepare the ground in that way. The anxious desire of Great Britain for a general reduction of armaments is well known. America in inviting us to a conference knows perfectly well that she is asking a guest who has been watching the post for an invitation. If we are going to conduct the business of the world on the old lines by means of naval competition, we shall be accepting certain catastrophe in order to avoid a possible catastrophe a generation hence. It has been said that every generation wants its war. Another way of putting that bold cynicism is that a nation which has fought a great war takes a gener- ation to recover and to forget. Probably, then, there are twenty-five or thirty years in front of us in which we shall be in no serious physical danger, and in which we can do our best to make reason prevail. Are thinking people in any country really such fools as not to wish to try this ? Are they in a fit of premature despair going to commit themselves to the opposite policy and bank- rupt themselves and break up civilization in order to avoid the danger of those things happening ? That would be behaving like the man who shot himself because he was haunted by the fear of death.
A triangular discussion in conference can do nothing but good, because it will diepose of the ridiculous mis- understandings which have been at the service of mis- chievous people in America. All Americans, of course, are very conscious of the clash of interests between America and Japan. Here is the opportunity of those who are willing to sacrifice the peace of the world to their own particularism. They rehearse all the disagreeable and familiar issues between America and Japan—the resentment of the Japanese at the anti-Japanese legislation in the American States on the Pacific slope ; the inability of the American Federal Government to control that local legislation ; the jealousy of Japan at the position of America in the Philippines ; and the counteracting annoyance of America at the position assigned by the Supreme Council to the Japanese in the island of Yap. Using these well- known facts as their starting-point, the mischief-makers go on to say "What is the Anglo-Japanese Treaty for, and why should it be renewed if it does not mean trouble for America ? There can be no other reason for it." In answer, it is pointed out, as the Spectator has times without number pointed out, that anybody reading the text of the Treaty will see that it is entirely local in its application. It was originally framed in face of what seemed to be a great Russian menace in the Far East, and it concerns itself with the seas in and about China and Japan. It was, moreover, and still is, a purely defensive alliance. There is no single line or word in the Treaty which gives counten- ance to the idea that Great Britain ever contemplated or would ever dream of helping Japan in an offensive war, and least of all in an offensive war against America. As though this were not enough, when the Treaty was renewed at the end of the first period the Japanese Government added an annex to the Treaty at the requelit of Britain, pointing out that the Treaty was neither in form nor in intention aimed against America, and that it could never be used for such a purpose. Even BD, it seems that the mischief-making particularists who have their own little caws to serve, whether it be the Irish cause or another, are not to be beaten. They fall back upon the grotesque assertion that there is a secret Treaty between Britain and Japan. The Treaty which is open for everybody to read, they say, is not the Treaty that really matters. Of course, there is no such thing as this alleged secret Treaty. A conference properly handled could dispose of all these fictions and legends. For our part we have never been enthusiasts for the Anglo- Japanese Alliance, but we are prepared to listen with respect to the arguments of those who say that a legal relation with Japan does give us the authority to exercise a friendly mediation between her and America, if ever that should be necessary.
The final reason why the Anglo-Japanese alliance could not be brought into operation against America is that the British Empire would not stand it. There are several slue ways of ending the British Empire, but the surest and quickest of all would be to join with a yellow raze in fighting the white races. If we want to blow the Empire sky high with our own hand, that is the way to do it. We sincerely hope that the conference will be summoned quickly, or, at all events, that preliminary conversations will begin at once. In our opinion, this conference should precede all naval programmes. Why spend money, not one penny of which we can afford, till it is proved necessary ? Why stupidly mortgage the future of civilization when it may be perfectly easy to launch it on a, new career unham- pered by the terrible burden of armaments ? There is no longer a Germany to be considered ; and that is the only kind of Power that compels other nations to wait and watch like strong men armed. Let us boldly at the conference give practical effect to the principle that a war between Great Britain and America is inconceivable, and come to an arrangement with America that she shall have naval charge of the Pacific, and that we shall have naval charge of the Atlantic—under which rough desig- nation we must include the Indian Ocean and the coasts of West and South Africa.
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