FROM CHARTER TO WHAT ?
THE controversy about whether we can afford, at this supreme crisis of the war, to be discussing the post-war world is, in the strict sense of the word, impertinent. The post-war world must be discussed,—at any rate in democratic countries where decisions are reached on the sound basis of argument, all views being heard and a final balance struck. That is a process which takes time. It would be fatal_ to wait till peace came in sight before considering the bases on which peace must rest. If there were any question of diverting to peace-discussions energies that should be concentrated on the war-effort the case would be different. But no one suggests that. The war-effort demands action by everyone and hard mental exercise by comparatively few. Those few, moreover, are not the people who would naturally be concerning themselves with post-war plans. The latter can be framing proposals and weighing possibilities without diminishing their contribution to the prosecution of the war by an iota. What they are trying to do needs badly to be done, and they ogught not to be deflected from their purpose by unseasonable criticism.
There are no doubt limitations to be observed. We are concerned at this stage with principles, not details, and the first need is to discover how far leading men in different countries can go together. By patiently extending and widening the area of agreement through responsible discussion we shall escape the danger, of which the would-be peacemakers at Paris in 1919 were made so conscious, of having to substitute hasty improvisa- tion for considered policy. Today-two tasks must be distinguished, that of making a peace and that of preserving it when made. It is the latter which repays study at this stage, and that study is already in progress. The first authoritative contribution to it was the Atlantic Charter, promulgated by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain almost exactly a year ago. The last of that document's eight points postulated, in studiously vague language, " the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security ", following on the dis- armament of the aggressor. States. That at any rate is a beginning, not very impressive perhaps, but more impressive, all the same, than it looks. For though the Atlantic Charter in the first instance represented simply the agreed views of the leaders of two of the United Nations the Charter was formally endorsed last September by eight other Allied States, including Russia. Its basis has, therefore, been considerably broadened.
In the last few weeks an emphasis which had been, laid rather too exclusively on principles has begim to shift to the question of organisation. That was particularly and notably the case in two statements made on the same day last month by the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain and the Secretary of State of the United States. " We must," said Mr. Eden at Nottingham, " either build an orderly, international, law-abiding society, in which each nation can live and work freely, without fear or favour, or we shall all be destroyed in a welter of barbaric strife," and he added that we in this country were pledged to play our full part in the process. That might be represented by a captious critic as going no further than generalities, but no one could accuse Mr. Cordell Hull of reluctance to be specific:. " It is plain fact," he asserted, " that some international agency must be created which can— by force if necessary—keep the peace among the nations in the future. There must be international co-operative action to set up mechanisms which can thus ensure peace." It is no bad thing that a proposal so definite should emanate from an accredited spokesman of the United States rather than of Great Britain. It is true, of course,—after 1919 we are not likely to forget it not even an American President, much less a Secretary of State, can commit the United States to arrangements which need the sanction of a treaty, for the ratification of treaties is the pre- rogative of the Senate. But there is no question that majority opinion in America, both inside and outside the Senate, supports Mr. Hull in this matter. No formidable opposition need be looked for from the Republicans, for their last candidate, Mr. Wendell Willkie, and their last President, Mr. Herbert Hoover, are both solidly with Mr. Hull on an international organisation to enforce peace. The Secretary of State is fully justified in giving a lead.
It may be taken as agreed, therefore, that after this war, as after the last, the task of preserving peace will be entrusted to an international organisation; of which the victorious States will in the first instance form the nucleus (unless, indeed, the existing League, with its existing member- ship, continues), and that once again an attempt will be made to achieve general disarmament preceded by the dis- armament of the defeated States. Precedent in such matters, it may be said, is discouraging, and at first sight it undoubtedly is. But the prospects for a League of Nations, or whatever the international organisation may be termed, after this war are far more hopeful that they were after the last. There was plenty of idealism then, and it is to be hoped that sufficient of it survives still, but the hard lessons of experience had still to be learned. They have been learned, or should have been, now, from the League's failures as well as its successes, and it is recognised that one, perhaps the chief, contributory cause of the failure was America's decision to hold aloof from an agency into whose fabric so much American hope and purpose had been woven. If a different decision is taken in Washington this time the whole situation will be changed.
The area of agreement extends further than this. Criticism of the League of Nations is almost entirely confined to its political side. Its economic and humanitarian work and the activities of the International Labour Organisation have evoked almost universal admiration, not least in a book in which Ex-President Hoover and America's best-known professional diplomat have just expressed their views on the problems of lasting peace. Having regard to the supreme importance of economic questions in the period of reconstruction, this is a fact of great significance. The obvious conclusion is that machinery that has worked so well should be kept in being, and strengthened and enlarged as occasion requires. It is worth remembering, moreover, that by an Anglo- American agreement of last February relations based on the Lease- Lend Act are to include economic collaboration in various specified forms after the war. This can well be extended to other Lease-Lend beneficiaries. On the political side the position is not so simple. One task allotted to the new or reconstructed League by Mr.Cordell Hull—and few are likely to join issue with him on this—is the preservation of peace " by force if necessary." That means that what the old League was intended to do the new League must do. It may not have to use force, but if not that will be because it visibly and demonstrably has force to use. The idea that peace can be preserved by the adoption of resolutions, or the menace, or even the actual imposition, of economic sanctions, is dead. A League that sets out to dissuade an aggressor from aggression must be in a position to restrain him from aggression if need be.
Here arise clearly several vital questions. What form of force must the League have at its command? Will a powerful air-force suffice? If so, how will it be recruited, how directed, how organised, where stationed? Can national armaments be kept to so low a police-level that the League armaments need not in fact be of very formidable volume? Need there be an actual League force at all, or can reliance be placed on the effective co-operation of national contingents? These are in the first instance military questions, but they raise at once fundamental political questions, chief of them whether. the new League is to be world-wide or regional. Almost certainly, in fact, it will be both, but the relationship of the parts to the whole can be variously conceived. The continental organisations (Western Hemisphere, Europe, Asia, as Mr. Hoover suggests, apparently leaving Africa and Australasia out altogether) can be the essential factors, with a loose co- ordinating general council; or the supreme body may be a universal League, with whatever devolution to regional bodies may seem desirable. There is still room for argument here, but the preservation of peace, " if necessary by force," would in many cases only be achieved by a universal body, and in any case the difficulty of dividing Europe and Asia so long as Russia stretches from Minsk to Vladivostok approaches the insoluble. Here, clearly, is abundant material for discussion, and without enlightened dis- cussion there will be no wise decision.
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