THE MEASURE OF THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE
How are we to measure the Washington Conference? There are people who
think it should be by the things that it did not undertake to do. The
Conference was indicted in Washington in January by a league of people
of considerable ability who declared that it had not lessened the chance
of war by a fraction of one per cent. The reason they gave for this
verdict was that it had not taken up the causes of India, Korea, the Far
Eastern Republic, Persia, the Philippines, Haiti, the “Republic of Mt.
Lebanon.”
It is certain that the world is going to have no quiet until these
troubled countries are satisfied. But they are not the only problems to
be solved. Mr. Hughes named a considerable number on his agenda. Is an
international conference to be declared a farce because it selects one
set of problems instead of another, and believes it more practical to
give exclusive attention to one side of the globe than to the entire
surface? You could not persuade Mr. Hughes and his colleagues that any
other policy than that of one thing at a time would contribute a
“fraction of one per cent.” to the peace of the earth. They believe the
block system is the only practical one for setting the world aright.
They lay it out something like this:
“Let us clean up the Pacific, then we can disarm. Having disarmed, we
can lend a hand in the next most distressed and troublesome
block—France, Central Europe, Russia. Having helped set them straight,
one at a time, then possibly we may consider an association of
nations—but not now.” So convinced was Mr. Hughes of the soundness of
his system that he threw out one of the chief subjects on his agenda—the
limitation of land armament—when he discovered he must leave his
block—the Pacific—and pass into Europe if it was considered.
The only system a man can successfully handle is that in which he has
faith,—the only fair way to judge what he does is by what he undertakes
to do—not what you would like him to undertake. Measured by the method
it adopted and the limitations it set for itself, how does the
Conference come out?
I began my observations on the Conference with a quarrel with the
agenda. Putting the problem of the limitation of armament before the
settlement of the difficulties or threats of difficulties in the
Pacific, which were keeping the countries concerned in arms, looked
illogical. It proved good psychology. The naval program stirred the
imagination of the country, became at once something tremendously
desirable—a real move toward peace. When England and Japan at once
agreed it became possible and practical. If they agreed, why, then—it
must be—the difficulties could be settled which many had doubted. The
Conference thus at the start gained what it needed most, popular faith
that it meant to do a concrete, tangible thing. The proposition that
England, the United States, Japan, France and Italy should adopt a naval
ratio of 5–5–3, 1.75—1.25 and agree not to build for ten years was a
big, substantial, stirring fact. To have them accept, as they did,
strengthened the faith of the world. It was the first time big powers
had ever said “scrap,” had ever been actually eager for a naval holiday.
The fact that neither the submarine nor the auxiliary craft are to be
limited in tonnage, as the original program proposed, if disappointing,
still does not upset the achievement. The submarine comes out of the
Conference unlimited in number but crippled in its field of action.
Merchant ships are forbidden it on penalty of piracy. That will not in
the thick of war prevent merchant ships being destroyed but it will take
the heart out of the business. Outlawry helps if it does not prohibit.
There is compensation also in the failure in regard to the tonnage of
auxiliary craft, for at least their size is limited—to 10,000 tons—and
their guns to 8 inches, and that is a fairly satisfactory substitute for
the original proposal.
In spite of the changes, cutting and trimming, the naval program remains
something which the country wants, something which it feels to be a blow
at war as well as a relief to its tax burdens.
If the naval program could stand on its own feet, it alone would make
the Conference a brilliant success, but it cannot. It was no sooner
raised to its feet than its makers had to rush in with props. The first
was a policy in regard to China. The reason was clear enough. Unless the
nations at the Conference could agree among themselves on a method of
assisting in the development of China which would prevent any one of
them taking an unfair advantage of the others, there were sure to be
quarrels sooner or later and they would need their ships. Unless they
could fix on a policy under which not only they each had a fair chance
but nations outside—not at the Conference, but likely in the future to
desire to invest in China—were not discriminated against, they would
need their ships. They would surely need them, too, one of these days,
if they did not satisfy China that what they agreed upon was as good for
her as for them.
Mr. Root hurried in with his four principles. Mr. Hughes outlined his
Nine Power Pact, which was to assent to the principles and the practical
applications of them which were to be worked out.
But the naval program had to have another prop before it could proceed.
It was not worth the paper it was written on unless England and Japan
agreed to it. They agreed in principle at the start, but in practice
they could and would not until they were sure that the nation that was
asking them to disarm wanted peace in the Pacific badly enough to join
them in a league to assure it by coöperation. Before they scrapped their
ships they wanted to know whether their present boundaries and rights
were to be respected by their colleagues—whether if one of them suffered
aggression from without the others were to remain indifferent or were
willing to pledge at least moral support. The Four Power Pact was the
prop desired. England, the United States, France and Japan agree in it
to face the future in the Pacific together. Pull out this prop and your
program for scrapping ships and a naval holiday falls flat—as flat as
the disarmament of France has fallen and for the same reason. If this
Conference for the Limitation of Armament does nothing more than to make
the American public understand better what has been at the bottom of the
conduct of France since the Armistice, it will have been worth all it
cost.
France has held up the peace of Europe, delayed its reconstruction,
lessened her own chances of reparation, alienated her best friends by
her persistent militarism. Go back to the peace treaty of 1919 when
disarmament was one of the fundamental principles adopted by the allied
nations. From the start France’s argument in regard to disarmament was
that for her it was impossible unless England and the United States
would guarantee her against aggression from Germany—if they would do
that she would disarm. In order to get disarmament, Mr. Wilson and Lloyd
George agreed to protect France against _unprovoked_ attacks. Our Senate
refused to ratify the agreement.
Having no guarantees, France kept her arms. Keeping her arms, the
military spirit spread, the military group grew stronger. How strong
recent events have shown.
One-third of the agenda of the Washington Conference—that in regard to
land disarmament—had to be scrapped ten days after the opening because a
reduction of land armament still meant to France a guarantee, the same
kind of a guarantee in principle that a little later we gave to Japan in
order to make it possible for her to agree with Great Britain and
ourselves on the naval program. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the
Conference on the Limitation of Armament is its demonstration that
disarmament means a union of the nations that disarm, that in no other
way, the world being what it is, can it be accomplished.
Along with this demonstration has gone another, frequently repeated,
that this union to which you are to pin your faith instead of ships and
armies, if it is to be permanent, must be all inclusive.
Again and again the Conference ran up against the difficulty that
although all the nations represented in Washington might make agreements
to cut down their capital ships, limit their auxiliary craft to 10,000
tons and their guns to 8 inches, put the mark of pirate on a submarine
that attacked a merchant vessel, forbid chemical warfare, limit the
number of air-craft ships—any one or all of these restrictions might
overnight be frustrated by one nation or a group of nations outside of
the alliance, entering on an ambitious and aggressive campaign of naval
construction. That is, this fine program for the limitation of
armament—almost certain to be carried out if the Four Power Pact in
regard to the waters of the Pacific and the Nine Power Pact in regard to
the protection of China are ratified by the different governments—still
may be destroyed overnight by some part of the world not included in
this union for peace. So obvious is this that the naval pact includes an
agreement that in case any one of the signing nations finds itself in a
dangerous position in regard to an aggressive neighbor, it shall have
the right to withdraw. Every step that has been taken in the Washington
Conference leads inevitably to the conclusion that it is all or none—if
the work is to stand.
The difficulty in the way of most people and most nations accepting this
conclusion is that they do not believe any such union of all nations
practical. They cannot see men of all races working together, settling
only by agreement the misunderstandings that inevitably come up.
If the Conference on the Limitation of Armament has demonstrated the
necessity of world coöperation if we are to have peace, it has also
demonstrated its practicability. Mr. Hughes started off by calling on
the two nations which the people of this country have for a long time
regarded with the most suspicion—the two nations against which we have
conducted a persistent campaign of ill will—England and Japan. Yet for
three months the delegations of these two nations worked with ours in
the utmost friendliness. Again and again I heard Mr. Hughes declare that
nobody could have been more coöperative, as he expressed it, than the
delegates from England and Japan. It was obvious that those countries
were quite as eager as ourselves to work out agreements that would
enable them to declare a naval holiday. All those initial suspicions
that we had of England and Japan and that England and Japan had of us
did not prevent the delegates of the three countries from coming to
conclusions on matters on which they had differed. What it seems to
prove is that you can get peace by friendly negotiation, that a
coöperation of nations is not a dream, that it is a reality.
What more amazing and convincing proof of this than the fact that China
and Japan did, by conference, agree on Shantung? Who would have believed
it possible? What made it possible was the faith and the wisdom of Mr.
Hughes and Mr. Balfour, their determination that the Chinese and
Japanese should learn to work together. “Talk it over” was their
instruction. “The Shantung question can only be settled peaceably by
yourselves.” It was one of the wisest, one of the most significant
decisions of the Washington Conference. Day after day the Chinese and
Japanese held conversations—not conferences. They talked, they
quarreled. Day after day they went home in wrath and disgust, refusing
suggested compromises, pleading the danger of losing their heads if they
consented. If the Chinese delegates offered Peking anything less than an
immediate and completely free Shantung, they could never again pass the
border of China. If the Japanese gave up even what they had promised to
give up, their lives would not be worth a song in Tokyo. Yet, day by
day, Japan was giving in a little, China becoming a little more
coöperative. Mr. Harding, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Balfour stayed on the
outside, genial but determined friends—determined that these two Eastern
neighbors should begin now to settle their disagreements. More than
once, China came to them: “Make Japan be good, great friends. You know
Shantung is ours. Make her be good.”
Patience won the day. It took thirty-eight “conversations,” interminable
cables, breaks, returns, the constant counsel of Mr. Balfour and Mr.
Hughes—“Steady now, steady. Don’t give it up. You must do it
yourselves”—to bring a final agreement between the two nations. But in
the end they did settle the Shantung difficulty. It was a tremendous
victory for the new international method of handling quarrels.
How reasonable it is that it should be so. It is a direct attack on a
difficulty not a roundabout one by correspondence through ambassadors.
Face to face, you examine the basis of suspicion. You ask, Is this true
or not? Are you doing so-and-so or not? Do you aim to do so-and-so? Thus
the actual situation, not the imagined one, is arrived at. It becomes
the actual property of a group of negotiators sitting at the same table;
and when the actuality is before them all, being turned over and
examined by them all, adjustment is almost certain _if there is good
will_. And here you come to the crux of the whole matter—you get no
adjustment unless the negotiators are working in a spirit of good will.
When I first set out to observe the Washington Conference I looked up a
man unusually wise and experienced in international affairs, one who for
many years has been collecting, arranging and explaining the diplomatic
adventures of men and of nations so that each coming generation might
have, if it would, the materials from which to find out what men had
already done in making peace and, if it were wise enough, why they so
often had failed. I was in search of just the material of which he of
all men knew most. “What shall I read first?” I asked him. His instant
reply was, “Æsop’s Fables. That should be the textbook of the
Conference. Read Æsop,” he said, “to see what they can do, and follow
with Don Quixote to see what they cannot do.
“But there is one book more important than all for the Conference—the
Gospels. But not King James’ version. That is a great and wonderful
translation, but it has done some harm in the world by not always giving
true values to great truths. It promises peace on earth and good will to
men. But that is not what was promised. Peace was promised to men of
good will. The success of the Conference will depend upon the degree to
which men of good will are able to prevail over those of ill will.”
This is the way it turned out in Washington. At every stage it was good
will which carried the undertaking forward. What will happen now in the
various countries to which the pacts of the Conference go will depend
upon the spirit of the peoples to which they are submitted, whether it
be malicious or charitable. Will there be good will enough in Japan to
make such rearrangements of her claims in China that Chinese bitterness
and suspicion will be removed? Will there be enough good will in China
to coöperate when these rearrangements are made? Will there be enough in
the United States to accept the pledges of mutual support which must be
made if the nations concerned are to limit their armaments? Have we
enough faith in men to accept the only possible alternative in the
present world to unlimited armament, and that is, a union of peoples
pledged to face misunderstandings at their beginning, to separate them
into their elements, and to bring all the force of collective judgment
and intelligence to adjustment?
It may be that the United States does not yet sufficiently understand
that the principle of unionism which is its strength is a world
principle, that one primary cause of wars in this world is isolation,
with its necessity of being suspicious, on guard, ready to strike—like a
rattlesnake. Æsop is a guide here, with his fable of the bundle of
sticks—sticks easy to break if separated, unbreakable when bound
together.
It may be that the Senate of the United States will refuse to back this
pact of good will which is just as essential to carrying out the program
of limitation of naval armament as a guarantee to France against
unprovoked aggression was two years ago (and is still) to European
disarmament. But, refuse it or not, the day will come—and nothing has
ever demonstrated it more clearly than the Washington Conference,—when
we are going to understand that the world can only remain in peace
through a union which is a practical application of the brotherhood of
man, not a limited brotherhood of man, such as Mr. Wells preached in his
final comment on the Arms Parley, but one including all men.
Mr. Wells’ idea of a brotherhood of nations is—or was!—one that includes
not every state of the world but “the peoples who speak English, French,
German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese, with such states as Holland and
Norway and Bohemia, great in quality if not great in power—sympathetic
in training and tradition.” He would admit only people of like ideals,
exclude Russia, India, China. Could there be a surer way to throw Russia
and India and China into an alliance against this so-called “Brotherhood
of Man”? Is there a surer way to awaken an ambition for liberty, to
spread ideals than to share what you have with those that seem to
you—and yet never in all respects are—backward nations? Is there any
brotherhood of man worthy the name which does not include all men?
However we may feel about it as a nation to-day, though we may ruin the
present program for limitation of armament by rejection of its
underlying pacts, the day will surely come when we shall realize and
admit the fullest international association and coöperation. It is the
one real asset humanity has carried from this war—the sense of the
oneness of the world, the impossibility of order and progress and peace
except as each is allowed to develop its individuality, in a free
continuing union of all.
Eventually the Washington Conference for the Limitation of Armament will
be judged by what it contributes to this union of nations, exactly as
all its predecessors will be judged. The Washington Conference is but
one in a long chain of international undertakings looking to peace. It
is built on the experience of many different men, of many different
countries, running back literally for centuries. Its immediate
predecessor was the Hague Conferences and tribunal and the Paris
Conference with its resultant League of Nations. So far the League of
Nations is at once the most idealistic and the most practical scheme men
have yet framed, the broadest in its scope and the most democratic in
its spirit. It may prove that humanity is as yet too backward to grasp
and realize its intent and its possibilities. It may make too great a
demand on their faith, their charity, their love; but nothing can
destroy the great fact that it has been undertaken by fifty-one nations,
that it is alive and at work. That fact will stand as a hope and a guide
to the future.
The present Conference has boldly and nobly attempted to do in a limited
field something of what the Paris Conference attempted to do for the
whole world. The limitation of armament it proposes rests, like world
disarmament, on unionism, standing together. Unionism requires faith;
have we enough of it? It requires, too, men of good will. Have we enough
of them? In the final analysis, it is with them that “peace on earth”
rests.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Changed ‘one or twice’ to ‘once or twice’ on p. 99.
2. Silently corrected typographical errors.
3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.