The Unionist Party and the Navy
T T was a bad day for the Unionists when it wag made to appear, as happened in the House of Commons on Monday, that most of them were opposed to the Naval Treaty of London. Let us deprecate in advance the retort that the Unionist Party, as a whole, is by no means opposed to the Treaty, but merely wants more inquiry, more assurances, before the Treaty can be ratified—for the construction inevitably put by the public upon the debate of Monday was that an attempt was made to torpedo the Treaty. If any ordinary observer had much doubt about the meaning of the part played by Unionists, his doubt would have been removed by Mr. Churchill's unreserved derision of the Treaty. It is vain for Unionists to say, like Miss Rosa Dartle, that they only ask to know. By seeming to be against the Treaty they are flying in the face of popular feeling and in the same degree they are failing to recommend themselves.
The tragic irony is that Mr. Baldwin is obviously in favour of the Treaty. No doubt he has misgivings on technical points here and there, but it is not to be imagined that he would dream of losing the Treaty in order to get satisfaction on those few points. In these circumstances it is necessary to discover some rational motive to explain Mr. Baldwin's tactics. One motive suggests itself so forcibly that it is not necessary to look for any other. He is hard put to it to hold his Party together-. No single policy provides the necessary bond, and so he must resort to some expedients to give an appearance of Party solidarity. It is rather as though a builder made a house look new and sound by pointing the brick work although inside the building there were conflicting constructional thrusts which threatened it with collapse. Mr. Baldwin has produced. recently two expedients to serve his purpose.
, The first was the promise of the Referendum, which was the only means he could think of for keeping his food- taxers and anti-food-taxers together until such time as the nation showed clearly whether it would or would not consent to the taxation of food. Mr. Balfour, when he was Prime Minister, of course hit upon the same device, and the best that could be said of it was that it helped him for a time but was useless as a solution of his troubles. For our part we are sorry that the Referendum, which we believe in as a democratic means of ending a Parlia- mentary deadlock, should be brought in rather surrep- titiously for a differentpurpose. Moreover, Mr. Baldwin's particular proposal for applying the Referendum not to a Bill which has been passed through all its stages, but to a proposal which has not even been put into Parliamentary shape, is likely to bring undeserved discredit upon the Referendum. We have mentioned all this, by the way, merely to display Mr. Baldwin's procedure when he wants to get out of a difficulty.
And so we come to the second of his two recent expedi- ents which was presented to the House of Commons on Monday. He proposed that the Naval Treaty should be reported upon by a Select Committee of eleven. Such a method would be an absolute innovation. When it was first heard of, one's mind naturally turned to the tedious and unhappy examination of the Treaty which is now being conducted by the Foreign Relations Committee of the American Senate. The American nation cannot avoid that kind of inquiry because it is implied in the Constitution. The original idea of the makers of the Constitution was that the Senate, which they conceived of as consisting of a few wise and responsible men, should advise the President on foreign affairs and in treaty-making. In the event it was found to be impracticable for the Senate regularly to advise the President on foreign affairs or to take a part in the negotia- tion of Treaties. The Senate, however, acting on a liberal interpretation of what it thought to be its rights, has preserved for itself the equivalent of the functions assigned to it in the Constitution by vetoing any Treaty which it did not like, or threatening to veto a Treaty if it was not amended. It has, of course, been enormously aided by the Constitutional provision that every Treaty requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate.
No other nation in the world has such a way of dealing with foreign affairs. Its inconvenience to other nations has been demonstrated often enough. Does any sane person really suggest that a procedure similar in character, and probably identical in results, should be introduced into this country ? When Mr. Baldwin was challenged to say whether he really wanted such a vast and undesirable change here he wisely refrained from saying that he did. He merely argued that as the limitation of Naval arma- ments by Treaty was a new policy, there was a certain propriety in asking that it should be subjected to a new and special scrutiny. It is safe to say, however, that Mr. Baldwin would not have brought forward his motion for a Select Committee if he had not been desperately puzzled how to hold together those Unionists who are frank and enthusiastic supporters of the Treaty and those who regard it as a national danger. So far from admitting that the American example aroused his misgiv- ings, he argued that as the American Senate was casting fresh light on the Treaty he did not see why fresh light should not be cast on it here.
Every reader of Mr. Baldwin's speech must have perceived, nevertheless, that his heart was not in the business of seeming to be opposed to the Treaty. Mr. Baldwin -had already saved his Party from a disastrous error when he stoutly resisted the expressed desire of many Unionists for a motion in the House of Commons condemning Part III of the Treaty (the part containing the Three-Power Agreement) and refusing ratification. The best case he could make out for his own more moderate motion was that our real naval dangers were not across the Atlantic but in Europe, and that the past history of "naval scares " showed that it was wise to remove all the uncertainty and lack of confidence which were the foundation of scares. We cannot imagine, however, a surer way of creating a first-class naval panic than to let other countries think that the good will of men of all parties here is no longer behind the Naval Treaty. All the conditions have changed since Cobden carried on his memorable duel with Palmerston on national security and wrote - his pamphlet The Three Panics. Such panics were inherent in the competitive system. -The whole point of the Naval Treaty of London is that it is the first step towards abolishing that system.
Mr. Churchill either cannot see the point or pretends that he cannot. If he believes with Mr. Ramsay Mac- Donald and President Hoover that public opinion and the Peace Pact together with its consequential apparatus of international law alone provide security, there is no sense in haggling about any formula of parity which is nothing more than a symbol of something infinitely greater—like the ring in marriage. It is difficult to know what Mr. Churchill really does mean. If he argued that nothing mattered but a complete scientific attain- ment of parity, well and good ; but he argues both ways. He says almost in the same breath that parity with-. America has betrayed us, and that nobody here ought. to care in the least how many ships America builds. We fancy that many people will have reached our own con- clusion that Mr. Baldwin would do better for his Party if he relied not so -much on expedients as upon telling insubordinate followers that they must march in step or fall out.
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