The Dominion WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1921. NAVIES AND WORLD WELFARE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 134, 2 March 1921, Page 4

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1921. NAVIES AND WORLD WELFARE

The vital urgency of promoting an international agreement to limit naval and other armaments was well brought out m a statement cicditecl in one of Monday’s cablegrams to Mr. Henry Bell, a director of Lloyd’s Bank. Europe, he said, would inevitably reach a state pl bankruptcy unless warlike expenditure was reduced. Similar views appear to hie held almost universally by the high financial authorities who are best, placed to assess the resources of different countries and their powers of recuperation. In what he had to say on this occasion Mr. Bell merely repeated and emphasised the warning issued by the experts who attended the International Financial Conference at Brussels that nations could not continue to spend twenty per cent, or more of their- national revenues on warlike preparation and hope to lecovcr normal prosperity. Probably almost every authority of standing would agree with Mr. Bell that some limitation of armaments is tor many nations the only alternative to bankruptcy, and that even those nations which are most fortunately placed can ill afford toj allow expenditure on armaments to develop, at the current rate. On these as well as on higher grounds., the case for limiting armaments is made out conclusively, but the great question at the moment is whether the United States is prepared to cooperate with other nations in the policy which is so plainly demanded in the best interests of all nations. It is strange that the attitude of an admittedly peace-loving nation should be at all in doubt on an occasion of this kind, but the fact stands that in what they have thus far had to say about the limitation of naval armaments—that section of the total question on which practical interest centres, at the moment —most of the political leaders with whom/it will rest to shape the policy of the- United States m the immediate future have been distinctly non-committal. A. noteworthy exception is Mr. Herbert Hoover, who this week becomes American Secretary for Commerce'. “There is no more inconceivable folly than this continued riot of expenditure on battleships,” ho declared recently, “at a time when great masses of humanity are dying of starvation in certain parts of the world.” He added that the money spent on naval armament since the Armistice “would have contributed materially to the entire economic rehabilitation of the world.” On the other hand the incoming President, MrHarding, has been content, while advocating a strong navy, to express pious hopes that the day is not far distant “when disarmament, will not bte a dream but will become an actuality.” What needs to be realised is that the limitation of naval armaments demands immediate treatment as a question of the first magnitude and urgency. Happily, there are signs that iii this matter public opinion in the United States is rapidly developing on linos that may compel the new President to take up a more purposeful attitude. The New York World, and other leading newspapers, are conducting a campaign in favour of an agreement between the United Stales, Britain, and Japan which would enable them to lead the way in reducing naval establishments and this proposal is receiving widespread support. Amongst those who. have contributed to the discussion no one has spoken more impressively than General Pershing, who commanded the American Expeditionary Force in the late war. Ours is not an aggressive nation (he observed recently) . . . If other nations have the same attitude it seems unreasonable not to believe that all would be willing to prove it by consenting to limit armaments. Unless some such move be made, we may well ask ourselves whether civilisation does not really reach a point where it begins to destroy itself, and whether we are thus doomed to go headlong down through destructive war to darkness and barbarism.

This pronouncement has attracted universal attention and prompted the question explicitly put by the Syracuse Herald: “When professional fighters talk in this strain, what excuse can civilian legislators give for their blind adherence to a suicidal policy 1” Much prominence has been given also in the United States to the New Year memorandum .issued by the British Navy League in which it declared that today civilisation is not threatened by 'any maritime Power, and urged that Britain and America should unite in convening a conference of Powers with a view to substituting a joint guardianship of the seas for competition in naval armaments. Sane American advocates of a big navy, it is true, regard this pronouncement and Britain s attitude generally on the question; with susnicion. These people find, in the limitation proposals an insidious move on Britain’s part to induce America to withdraw from a competition in which she is bound to prevail. These suggestions are effectively answered by the Springfield Republican. It matters lit,fie whether British appeals for a curtailment! of naval construction are a piece of hypocritical selfishness or whether, as a Japanese paper says. ''Britain wants disarmament to suit low own convenience.” No one need believe in British idealism in. this i ■-.■-.'•<■ t- it' his (|is|il.-os ( ,r me-* indices are incurably Anglophobe. The point is t'hnl if all be parties interested would he benefited bv a certain course, common sense dictates that the oppor--1 tunity to follow it be not neglected.

The United States is better able, financially speaking, to enter a race of naval armaments than Great Britain or Japan, but the United States can not afford to do it without inviting the same bankruptcy that more gravely threatens (he other Powers under the strain of naval rivalry. As a whole, discussion has been carried to a point when it is clearly demonstrated that America as definitely as any European country, though not in the same degree of immediate urgency, has everything to gain and nothing to lose by. cooperating in an agreement to limit naval armaments. The fear formerly entertained in some quarters that America conceivably might find herself opposed to the united strength of Britain and Japan in naval war has been thoroughly dissipated. Apart from the fact that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance expressly absolves Britain from supporting Japan against the United States, it has been made. fully manifest that from the. British standpoint such a combination ft unthinkable. Whether the American Government will.rise to ,the occasion and co-operate in limiting naval armaments is still an open question, but it is at least' being made clear to the American people that from their own standpoint, as well as on broader grounds, the cnee for action on these lines is overwhelming.