An American View of Naval Reduction N OW that Mr. MacDonald
has taken the stage in the United States, it will be helpful to reflect upon the American point of view on naval reduction. Thus shall we better understand the difficulties. In America the background—to use the word which is prevalent over there--is all:important. When we speak of the American point of view we have not in mind that of the Big Navy party, which is by no means- character- istic, but rather that of thinking Americans who are entirely averse from a naval competition and cannot quite understand what their country would do with a large Navy, but who are inclined to say, " Well, if Great Britain does not meet us halfway we suppose we must build after all. We are 'a great and rich country, and if there are going to be large navies anyhow, no doubt, we ought to have one as big as any." A small book has come into our hands lately (America's Naval Challenge, The Macmillan Company, New York, $1.50), which describes the American background to admiration. The author is Mr. Frederick Moore, a well-known American journalist who has many English friends in both London and Peking and who was at one time American Councillor in the Japanese Foreign Office in Tokyo.
Mr. Moore treats war between Great Britain and America as " unthinkable," not merely on sentimental grounds, but because he sees that Great Britain has decisive reasons for not going to war with America even if she wanted to do so. To begin with, he says that it is necessary for Great -Britain in all her relations with Europe to keep America in play as a potential sister-in- arms. In another great European war Great Britain might be compelled' to make 'a compromise peace unless she had American aid. Therefore, if only to ensure her position as part of the European system, she will never drift lightly into a policy of estrangement from America. Ile laughs at the Big Navy argument that great Britain has a tremendous source of man-power in India. He thinks that India might be more of a hindrance than a help, and he adds that not even all the man-power of the Empire's 70,000,000 white persons could be counted upon to join in another war. Next, Great Britain would be more exposed than ever to the risk of starvation, whereas America would hardly be troubled by such a fear at all. Finally, Canada is practically defenceless against the United States.
Mr. Moore, in his fairness, is quite willing to turn the argument the other way and to show that America with less to dread than Great Britain from another war would commit the greater wickedness in consenting to it:— "The same security that we enjoy upon the Pacific is ours also upon the Atlantic and for similar reasons. There is no European Power nor any possible combination that will or can menace our assured position. Nor are we likely to make war upon any of them, for no other nation is likely to kill American citizens in the way that Germany unwisely did in desperation under the influences' of a military spirit. It is said that if Britain is again involved in a great war our rights upon the seas will be challenged as in 1812 and 1914. But no question of trade rights upon the seas need provoke us to war with Great Britain. If our government, what- ever it may be at the time of another European war, differs from the British Government, ' Conservative, Liberal or Labor, the countries have the instruments and disposition to settle such a controversy by diplomacy or arbitration, as has often been done between them. -In the last analysis, if the British navy be arbitrary and the American Government insistent over an interpretation of the Freedom of the Seas, we have economic weapons fully adeqUate to bring the British Government to terms."
Mr. Moore might have added that in another war one side will be known to the League as an aggressor, and that it is inconceivable that Americans in spite of their long tradition of championing the rights of neutral trade would " aid and comfort " any nation which was branded as a criminal. The Americans under a thin mask of materialism are among the greatest of idealists, and it is absolutely certain that they would refuse to be accomplices in crime for the sake of private gain.
Mr. Moore was .evidently not an admirer of President Wilson's policy in regard to the Navy. He blames Mr. Wilson for having in effect—in a manner that was strangely false to his character--threatened a large building programme if Great Britain would not reduce her Fleet. It is true that Mr. Wilson was at the same time saying things much less like the old-fashioned arguments which invariably ended in war. lie said, for .example, that the British and American navies might become a kind of united police force. But Mr. Moore cannot find any creditable explanation of Mr. Wilson's refusal (through Mr. Daniels) to consider a proposal put forward by the British delegation at the Paris Peace Conference for Naval limitation. The explanation, we suggest, was that Mr. Wilson was for the moment out of temper with Great Britain and was over- persuaded by Mr. Daniels. He was, in short, inspired by acute mistrust. That explanation, however, makes it necessary to explain Mr. Daniels—which is more difficult. Mr. Moore quotes from Mr. Daniels' diary :- " Mr. Lloyd George cannot support the League of Nations unless the United States will agree to cease the construction of its big naval program. Great Britain cannot consent to any other nation having supremacy on the seas.'" " I did--not reply to this virtual ultimatum. It ended the discussion for the time being. What do you think of that propo- sition put up to the American Secretary of the Navy—the League of Nations declared to be dependent upon abandonment of the American naval program ? I didn't sleep much that night.
" It was necessary to end the conference to secure time to cool off after so astonishing a threat. "
But was it a threat ? Was not Great Britain entitled to say, " We yield the supremacy of the seas, in the sense that we agree to equality with America, but we cannot accept any new naval supremacy as a rational basis of peace."
In spite of such misunderstandings which caused a spring-tide of mutual mistrust, the Washington Con- ference, thanks largely to Mr. Hughes and Lord Balfour, was a resounding success. Unfortunately it left over the cruiser problem for settlement later—the cruiser problem which touches Great Britain at her tenderest point. The effort to solve it at Geneva in 1927 was, of course, a dead failure. Mr. Moore thinks, as we do, that tactically Great Britain would have done well to accept any American proposal on the ground that what- ever ships America might build could be no sort of menace to her. At the same time he admits frankly ',hat the British delegation was technically justified in pointing out that parity as proposed by America would not really be parity but would give America a fighting superiority in 'cruisers. This is obvious, because if there were to be a globular tonnage for the cruisers of both countries America would naturally expend the tonnage on large shipS appropriate to her peculiar con- ditions, and Great Britain would naturally expend' the tonnage on a large number of small patrolling vessels of slight fighting value. He adds that the British plan of dealing with all classes of ships " had advantages which men like Hughes and Root would have seized upon."
One more quotation :- " The effort of the British Admiralty is to provide for the safety of the British Isles ; that of our Navy Department in competition with Great Britain is to make the seas secure for American merchantmen across the Atlantic and across the Pacific. The British contention is correct ; we do not need a navy equal to theirs for an equal purpose. Our national security could not be endangered by their navy ; but the reverse is true. An American Navy equal to the British means American naval superiority. The British have been endeavouring to make Americans recognize this fact, but our naval men have endeavored to prevent any such idea getting into the American mind."
That is the question. How far does the advice of the naval men still count ?
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