An Oceanic League For Peace

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 111, 3 February 1934, Page 20

An Oceanic League For Peace

THE probability of restoring the League as the unifying factor in Europe relying for the present mainly on ‘equality’ and balance for its security, and the hope of preventing the preponderance of the French system giving place to the preponderance of a German system, which would then proceed to tear up the treaties and change the frontiers of eastern Europe by force, or the threat of force, would be immensely increased if the ‘oceanic’ Powers of the League-Keliogg system could -form a security arrangement among themselves, uncommitted to the internal polities of Europe, yet, under the famous Stimson declaration of August, .1932. no longer neutral to the possibilities of war but actively concerned to prevent it. “The formation of such an oceanic security arrangement within the League-Keliogg system is much more possible than at first might appear. If the major Powers of Eur-Asia finally break away not only from free institutions but also from collectivism in international affairs, the problem of security against possible militarist action will once more become an important consideration in the national counsels of all the liberal and democratic peoples By standing together in a kind of oceanic system for security they would themselves be in a position of almost complete invulnerability. "Its members would be the nations of the British Commonwealth, of North and South America, the Powers which control non-Mediterranean Africa, France, Belgium, Spain and probably Scandinavia. It would cover two-thirds of the earth’s surface. Nearly all the self-governing people* within it are democracies and believers in free institutions. It would have

immense natural security. Taking a line from Canada or Panama through Hawaii, Singapore, Aden, Suez, Malta, Gibraltar, and back to England, it would control practically all the naval bases and great international canals. “It would have, too, immense financial and economic resources, for the greatest aggiegation of manufacturing plant and mines lies around the basin of the North Atlantic, and the rest of the area is largely agricultural. It might well develop an intelligent system of mutually adjusted tariffs between its members which would leave room for a large measure of international exchange. “Would the United States consent to enter into' such an oceanic system? For without her co-operation it could not be effectively created. At this moment she would not do so; but events are steadily driving her in this direction. “On the one hand the military and naval expansion of Japan is forcing her to consider the problem of Iter owti security, and to concentrate her naval resources in the Pacific, and unless she is going to have a navy larger than both the British and the Japanese Navies combined, a naval understanding between Great Britain and the United States based on the Kellogg Pact, the 3 Stimson declaration and the Nine and Four Power Pacific treaties, wholly defensive in character and involving no commitments in Europe, might give both sides the security and economy they desire. Further, it seems likely that the present American experiment in economic autarchy will break down.”—“The Bound Table.”