Anglo-American Relations Mutual Disarmament Essential to Peace

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 80, 28 December 1929, Page 17

Anglo-American Relations Mutual Disarmament Essential to Peace

THE central fact in Anglo-American relations is that any serious war on the face of the earth is likely to precipitate an Anglo-American conflict over belligerent and neutral rights at sea, writes Mr. Philip Kerr, secretary to Mr. Lloyd George from 1916 to 1921. The main reason why either Great Britain or the United States thinks of building a navy against the other is that it may be able to protect its neutral trade in the event of the other going to war with a third party. i Now it is quite clear that this problem of the "freedom of the seas cannot be solved by allowing Britain, with "command of the seas,” to exercise her own discretion in regard to interference with neutral trade. It is equally clear that the problem cannot be solved by making the seas “free” to the trade of all nations in time of war, i.e., by entrenching neutral rights, for the enforcement of absolute neutral rights would nullify all effective international action for dealing with an aggressor to prevent war. The "freedom of the seas” is inseparable from the freedom of the world, for if the sea were “neutralised,” land powers would be left with belligerent rights which were denied to naval powers. Nor can the problem be solved by attempting tq re-codify maritime law so as to define neutral rights. The last war proved that it is impossible to distinguish between contraband and non-contraband. Everything except ostrich feathers is used for war purposes. Further, the whole idea of codifying neutral and belligerent rights is incompatible with the Kellog-Briand - Pact. It is quite illogical as well as a confession of lack of faith to diaw dp rules for warfare if the use of warfare itself is to be renounced. We are still left, therefore, with the fundamental problem of AngloAmerican relations—What is to happen when one nation becomes involved iu a war while the other is neutral? There is but one solution—to make the Briand-Kellog' Pact effective. The alternatives are inexorable. Either war is prevented, or every war is liable to develop into an Anglo-American war. Consideration of the neutral problems of disarmament leads to the same conclusion. So long as war is tolerated as a method of settling inter-, national disputes, armaments are inevitable. Yet no nation can have security by armaments unless its armament is strong enough to make its neighbours insecure. Hence the perpetual repetition throughout history,of competition in armaments ending in periodic war. So long as national armaments exist they must be used either as instruments for war, or as instruments by which resort to war is prevented. They must be used either for military purposes or for police purposes. There is no third alternative. . It is sometimes suggested that the peace problem can be solved by distinguishing between “public” and “private” war, or by defining an “aggressor.” But who is to decide that a certain nation is an “outlaw?” Not the League of Nations, for the United States is not even a member of it. Moreover, in all serious disputes the League Council itself is likely to be divided. As for determining an “aggressor,” no investigating machinery that can be, devised will act quickly enough. Who knows whether Paraguay or Bolivia was the “aggressor” in the late dispute? The creation of “automatic” tests, such as a refusal to arbitrate, simply means that it becomes the main function , of diplomacy to manoeuvre an opponent into a position in which it will automatically be in the wrong. The “aggressor" solution is an illusion. The only way forward is to begiii to apply in the international sphere exactly the same method as preserves peace in the national sphere,

which is to distinguish between the prevention of violence and the settlement of the dilute. Peace in the domestic sphere begins when a community makes up its mind that it will prohibit the use of violence because until that is effective there is no security that people will not try to take the law into their own hands, everybody goes armed, and shooting is chronic. It is only when violence is prevented that the reign of law and justice can begin. Lasting peace in the international sphere will similarly begin only when the nations make up their minds that the settlement of international disputes by war is disastrous because war anywhere tends to damage everybody and to engulf the whole world.

The prevention of war is the primary interest of every nation in the world. The settlement of disputes may be merely a local affair. War in Europe is a vital concern of the United States, just as war in South America is a vital British concern, because war in either continent may produce au Anglo-American crisis over neutral trade. But the settlement of the local problems, once the war has been stopped, may be of merely local concern. If the signatories of the Pact of Paris, and especially the United States and Great Britain, should publicly recognise that they are all vitally interested in any threat to the peace of the world, they could make the Kellog Pact effective. What they would do to prevent hostilities cannot now be foreseen. But once public opinion comes to the conclusion that the settlement of international disputes by war must be prevented, it will certainly mobilise action against war which will sweep older diplomatic machinery aside. It may be that, if persuasion fails, embargoes will be employed, or some form of financial or naval blockade, or military pressure. But can there be any doubt that if the leading - signatories of the Pact, or even the United States and the British Commonwealth by themselves, were really determined to prevent the settlement of disputes by war, they would be able either to prevent hostilities or to choke off any war which had begun? The procedure was laid down in the Washington Four Power Treaty of 1922 for dealing with difficulties which may arise in the Pacific. It only requires extension to cover all war threats.

What happened in the recent Grmco-Bulgarian dispute illustrates the method admirably. The Council of the League of Nations was in session and the parties were immediately summoned. As they began to state their case, M. Briand stopped them, and said that the Council could not consider the rights and wrongs of the case; its first duty was to stop hostilities; once (guarantees on this point were given, it could take steps to secure an impartial and fair adjudication of the matters in dispute. Both sides agreed to stop hostilities and to withdraw behind a defined line, and in due time a verdict was given. The Bolivia-Paraguay dispute was settled by the League along similar lines, save that here the final settlement of the issues was left entirely to the Pan American Conference in session at Washington.

Either we prevent all war ? or every war tends to develop into an Anglo-American war and a world war: either armaments will be used as police instruments whereby resort to war is prohibited, or they will-be used as the instruments by which international disputes are settled by war. We are clearly at a turning point of the world’s history. To paraphrase what Abraham Lincoln said of another issue: the nations cannot stand for law at home and war abroad; justice and reason must settle everything, or war, in the future as in the past, will settle everything: force must be mobilised behind law and justice, or it will be used for war.