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Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 12, 8 October 1921, Page 7

NO SECRECY

CONDITIONS AT ARMAMENT CONFERENCE SHOCKS AHEAI FOR DISTINGUISHED VISITORS THE ORDEAL BY PRESS INTERROGATION A WAY TO BETTER UNDERSTANDING (From Our Special Correspondent, Mr. Frank H. Simonds.) Washington, September 6. In this week's article Mr. Simonds discusses the strange surroundings and atmosphere in which European' and o-ther foreign diplomats will find themselves at Washington during the coming Armament Conference, He feels that they will be shocked at times, but they will get to know the American and his viewpoint better than most of them do now, and that the new point ot contact will be productive of good In removing obstacles to mutual understanding.

One element in the forthcoming Washington Conference is at least worthy of notice on your side Of the Atlantic. The fact that for the first time Europe—and for that matter the world —is coming to the United States for a discussion of international affaire has a very clear meaning to Americans. It is a matter of nationar pride, of domestic satisfaction. - All through the country there is intense rivalry between cities as to which shall have the honour of the political conventions called to name the candidates for president and the honour and distinction of the scores of other national convocations of various organisations of all sorts. The fortunate cities which are selected are not only the object of envy, but acquire prominence the country over, and translate this distinction. into business prestige.

Now, in a little wider sense, the same emotion is roused) the country over by the fact that the United States is to .take its place as one of the countries ■. eligible for the holding of international , conventions. Save for the Portsmouth [ Peace Conference, of nearly two decades ago., nothing of the sort has ever happened to us. It marks a step in history •and. there is a real appreciation of the fact in the nation at large. A PICTURE OF WASHINGTON. But, on the other hand, Washington, the capitol, is in no real sense a capitol at. all. It . lacks pretty much all of the resources which are found in Paris, London, or Berlin, or even, for that matter, in much smaller capitals. It is essentially a small town in its atmosphere, its appurtenances, its traditions. It lacks large hotels. The inauguration of a President, a four-year ceremony, utterly passes its capacity, and the crowds are driven .to spend, the night in the nearby ■ city-of Baltimore, forty miles away. ■There is a small official circle, there is a. slightly larger legislative circle, there is the society circle made up of a few of the highest American, officers and the diplomatic representatives of the foreign nations, but this is all. Life is divided ->off into-comportments which are severely separated, the .legislative world viewing with frank'contempt-the diplomatic and ’the official worlds, the latter ignoring the legislative, which; under its contempt, ' preserves an - intense jealousy and dislike. What will happen In the face of the forthcoming international conference with all the tax it will put. upon Washington resources is a grave problem for those who are responsible.. We Americans look. forward to all "big shows,” whether political conventions or not. as periods of intense, if brief, activity, during which everyone expects the maximum of discomfort and the minimum of convenience. The leisurely processes of foreign diplomacy, the regard for all the •details for the "protocol," these are things quite outside our conception. If the forthcoming conference were to be held in New York City, obviously it ' would find there all the things which one associates with the idea of a capital, save the official world. It is in New York, and not in Washington, that the representatives of foreign countries, other than the ambassadors, really make their headquarters. . In a very real sense New York is a world city, although it has a provincialism, of its own which in its .extravagance becomes almost cosmopolitan. A BIG CONFERENCE IN A SMALL TOWN. But Washington is after all a small town, with the atmosphere, the circumstances, the character of a small town. Few capitals have more beautiful parks, streets, surrounding country, but in many ways the capital of the smallest European State more completely realises the conception of a capital than Washington. And no capital which I have ever seen is so devoid of ceremony or regard for official dignity as the city beside the Potomac.

It follows, then, that the Conference of Washington will inevitably be something quite different from any of the famous international gatherings of the past, something totally unlike gatherings like the Congresses of Vienna and Berlin, and even the Conference of Paris, which made the Treaty of Versailles. The shock which is awaiting the foreign diplomats, when they first encounter the casual and almost naively simple order of our Washington life promises to he amusing beyond words.

HOW DISTINGUISHED VISITORS WILL BE SHOCKED.

And in nothing will the shock be more interesting than in the newspaper circumstances. With us the President sees the Washington correspondents at least twice a week, immediately after Cabinet meetings. The Secretary of State sees them twice a day. A certain reticence is permitted to the President, who may decline to answer, but not to receive questions. But the Secretary of State must submit to the most gruelling cross-exam-ination in which every reticence only serves to intensify interrogation. In Paris the American correspondent was at a disadvantage; ho was in a strange country and handicapped by a foreign language, the great men of other nations protected themselves behind a barrier of Press agents and propagandists. The American correspondent seldom broke through, and never, so far as I know, reached Clemenceau or Lloyd George. Even President Wilson, adopting the European method, became invisible. But the American correspondent had his revenge. Among tho agencies which contributed to the defeat of : the Treaty of Versailles in the United States Senate, the correspondent was probably the roost potent. He, it was, who created the suspicion which was fatal, and he did it by constantly emphasising the secrecy and remoteness of the Paris Conference. NO DODGING THE CORRESPONDENTS. In Washington it is not going to bo as simple for the greatest to dodge the correspondent. tie has them, so io speak, in his hand. Tho town is so •mall that escape or privacy are next to Impossible. Moreover, if the conference Should choose Io go underground, this fact would 1 supply the sensation of evory,

| day’s news, and contribute to disoreditI ing the whole negotiation even before the result had been reached. The American correspondent expects to see Briand and Lloyd George daily—he expects to question them searchingly; he demands frankness as his right. And in expecting this he is expecting nothing more than he gets from his President and from every member of the Cabinet. As for the Legislative leaders, they quite as frankly ask as receive appeals for publicity. I wish I might make clear the picture of the village character of official life in Washington, because it is going to play such an important part in the conference. Secrecy will be next to impossible, and such secrecy as there is will be an indictment of the whole performance for that vast American audience which desires that its news shall be dictagraphic. Privacy will be almost out of the question, both because of the smallness of the city itself and the atmosphere and custom. And, taken at its best, European visitors must expect grave inconveniences, and, in addition, other inconveniences growing out of our total unfamiliarity with gatherings of this sort. .A GREAT OPPORTUNITY. By contrast I can conceive of no more admirable opportunity to seethe American system in operation. Perhaps the most unfortunate circumstance in our relations with Europe is the unfamiliarity of the mass of European journalists with oiir country and with our Press. The Paris Conference did a Hi tie. ever so little, to create a personal relation between the journalists of Britain, France, and the United States. The war did a little more. But the Washington Conference could do more than both put together, and could contribute to removing very real obstacles to mutual understanding. Lord Northcliffe is one of the few British journalists who has ever taken tne Time antFtrouble'To “study the American situation, and the success which he.had here during the war. and his recent triumph in putting his side of a domestic controversy before millions of Americans show the result of hin study. Given the better relations which we all hope are fo result from the latest international conference, nothing can be more useful than an entente between American and British and French journalists. But to such an entente there Is necessary a degree of mutual pnderstanding nnd personal acquaintance, and for all of this the Washington Conference provides a way which is simple, direct, and easy. If only Europe would send her more conspicuous journalists to VI ashington as freely as we sent ours to Paris, the profit would be enormous on both sides of the. Atlantic. /

(Copyright, 1921, by the M'Clure Newspaper Syndicate.)