Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1922. ACHIEVEMENT AND HOPES

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 32, 8 February 1922, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1922. ACHIEVEMENT AND HOPES

To say that President Harding's address at the final session of the .Washington Conference was worthy of the occasion, is to give it- high praise indeed, "for the occasion was one of the greatest in human history. The reason of mankind has triumphed, over the unreason which, not merely during the four years of war but throughout the first three years of the so-called peace which followed, seemed to have taken control of its affairs. Great in its actual achievement, the Washington Conference is greater still in the hopes which it has inspired. For the achievement and the hopes alike the, world is'indebted to the nation which, having entered the War after two years and a-half of hesitation, seemed bent on resuming its eighteenth century isolation when the war was over, and to!^he statesman who seemed well fitted to champion this ignoble and impossible ideal. At the time of his election Mr. Harding was unknown to the world, and insofar as he was known to his own countrymen it was neither for statesmanship nor for the promise of it. The undoing of President Wilson and the collapse of his great policy are commonly ascribed to his idealism and his autocracy. But America is not afraid of idealism, and, like other democracies, it likes a strong man, though it has perhaps been more successful than most of them in making his path to power difficult. If )S.y. Wilson had been what the Americans call a "good mixer," it is probable that other qualities would have presented no insuperable obstacles to the success" of his policy. When the time came for choosing his successor, the Republicans selected as their candidate a man who, neither as journalist nor as Senator, had displayed ' any striking gifts of statesmanship, but who was emphatically a "good mixer." : '

"I will let you into a secret, my countrymen," said Mr. Harding at one of the few election meetings it was deemed advisable for him; to address personally. "So far as I know, I was selected because of a belief among the generality of my party that ,1 had a faculty for bringing men together." And at another meeting he parried ■,& volley of awkward questions about the League of Nations with the remark, " Let's be homey." It was Mr. Harding's' task as a candidate to combine the support of such eminently " un-homey " opponents of the League as Mr. Hiram Johnson with that of Republicans like Mr. Taft and Mr. (Root, who had backed it almost as strongly as the retiring President. Under these conditions, a " homey, Yes-No candidature was the best service that Mr. Harding could render to his party, and the success with which he kept the Leaguers and the .Irreconcilables together fully justified his modest claim to " a faculty for bringing men together." The Republicans snowed their rivals under at the polls, but the conditions of the Yes-No candidature which was the price of victory showed up to less advantage in the Yes-No statesmanship of the new fPr.ea.ident's laaujgural Address,

which was definite in its negation of the League and very vaguo in its attitude towards any alternative responsibilities. It was hailed as a triunjiph by the champions of "noninvolvementcy"—a barbarous word which the Americans have coined to represent an antiquated policy. The scorn of those who had hoped to see America give the world a moral lead was well expressed by a poet of the New Republic:

We are reserved for'some more splendid fate Than any Europe dreams of,' and the Lord, Who filled the founders with his secret woid, Means us to have no rival and no mate.

But from the date of his inauguration (4th March last) onwards, the President's foreign policy has steadily broadened and strengthened. The rhetoric of' the inaugural ' —" Our eyes will never be blind to developing menaces, our ears never deaf to civilisation's call " —which in its context of negation had an almost ironical sound, was rapidly brought into closer touch with reality. In July the Great Naval Powers were sounded regarding the holding of a Conference to discuss the reduction of armaments and the "adjustment of the Pacific problems which, since the destruction of the German navy, have supplied their principal raison d'etre. The Conference which assembled at Washing on the 12th November was opened by President Harding in a notable speech, of which the-follow-ing .passages are worth recalling:

This is»a meeting, I can well believe, which is an earnest of the awakened conscience of twentieth century civilisation. It is not a convention of remorse, nor a session of sorrow. It is not a conference of victors to define terms of settlement, nor a council of nations seeking to remake humankind. It is rather a coming together from all parts of the earth to apply the better attributes of mankind tol minimise the faults of our international relationships. . . . Nothing can be accomplished in disregard of national apprehension. This is not done by intrigue. Greater assurance is found in exchanges of simple honesty and directness among men resolved to accomplish, as becohies leaders among the nations when civilisation itself comes to its crucial test. It was thus in a thoroughly unconventional spirit that the President asked the assembled diplomats to set to work, and the American Secretary of State gave them a thoroughly unconventional* lead. He took his colleagues' 'breath away by at once putting all Artier-*i ica's cards on the table, and submitting a detailed scheme of naval disarmament which has since been substantially adopted. If the Con-1 ference had done no more than this, its contribution to the happiness of the world by1 the mere alleviation of the taxpayers' burden! would have been immense. But it has also by the Four-Power Pact, and other'treaties and adjustments', gone further towards the settlement of the Far Eastern menace s and the securing of the status quo in the Pacific than^anybody considered possible six months ago. A greater service still is that by these memorable achievements the Conference has inspired even the sceptics with the hope that by similar methods still, more brilliant successes are soon to be won in the same field. ' As 'we have said, the speech in which President Harding reviewed the work of the Conference was worthy of the occasion. I will, say, with every confidence (he said), that the faith jjlighted here to-day will be kept in national honour, and will j mark the beginning of a new and better I epoch in human progress, in/revealing the light o£ the public opinion of the j world without surrender of sovereignty, without impaired nationality or' affronted national pride. A solution has been found in amity. . . .' When the days were dragging and agreements were delayed, few stopped to realise that here waa a Conference where only unanimous agreement could be made the rule. There were "no victors to command, no vanquished to yield. You have agreed, in spite of all difficulties. No new standards of national honour have been sought, butindictments of national dishonour have been drawn. It little matters what we appraise- as the outstanding achievement. .Any one alone would have justified theConference. The whole achievement has so cleared the atmosphere that it will seem like breathing the .refreshing aiv of a new morn of promise. You have halted folly and lifted .burdens. The President's rhetoric is simpler and more "homey", than it was, and his faculty "for bringing people together" has achieved a more wonderful triumph when the units were nations than when they were American electors.