Evening Post. FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1928. SPECIFIC OBLIGATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 16, 20 January 1928, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1928. SPECIFIC OBLIGATIONS

A happy chance brought on to our caj)le page yesterday tvo reports on the subject of international peace which were in essence as far as the poles asunder. In one our London correspondent added many interesting details to the condensed report which had been supplied to us by cable last month of^the remarisable performance of the Soviet delegation at the meeting of the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference. In another column appeared a cabled summary of the memorandum op security and arbitration which the British Government has submitted to the Sub-Committee on Security of the same Commission.. The contrast between the millennial thoroughness of the scheme for the abolition of war by jhe destruction of every kind of armament in fpur years which was proposed by the representatives of the most aggressive Power in the world, and the cautions, halting, and almost timid altitude of the Power which ever since the Armistice has carried the main burden of the world's peace, could hardly have been more complete if both Powers had been puppets in the hands of a dramatist. To the idealist unprejudiced by any knowledge of the facts of history or of human nature, and therefore guided solely by the worde of the parties, the advantage would seem to be entirely on the side of the Russian proposal. Not until he realises that the problems of international politics cannot he handled like those of mathematics, and;.that whether a scheme is practicable, and whether its advocates are sincere, are more important tests than its abstract perfection, will he come to a different conclusion. There was tact in M. Litvinoff's selection of English as the language in which to address the Preparatory Disarmament Commission, but otherwise the whole performance seems to have been as tactless and gauche as possible. His opening is described by our correspondent as follows: Certain peoples ■will stigniatisc our programme as propaganda, he roared in broken English, but if this is not tlio proper place to. make propaganda for peace, then we have conic here under a misapprehension. With increasing vehemence, ho denounced the League *nd capitalistic Powers for alleged reluctance to pjit into practice the policy of disarmanie»t. The "broken English" in which M. Litvinoff is said to have spoken does not quite fit with the "excellent English, winning his wife's nods of apr ■ proval," mentioned by the Press Association's correspondent, but it may be that it was only when M. Litvinoff strayed from his manuscript that hie English was faulty. At the worst, i his English was doubtless a good deal better than the best Russian in which Lord Cushendun could have replied. The "Daily Telegraph" speaks of the nine heads of M. Litvinoff's peace scheme, but as enumerated by our correspondent they' appropriately agree in number with the famous Fourteen Points of President Wilson's peace conditions. In substance the Soviet's beautiful scheme for the dissolution of all' armies, navies and air forces, the abolition of military budgets and of military service and training, whether compulsory or voluntary, etc., etc., was sufficiently covered by the cabled summary. But an illuminating detail is supplied in the addition to the black list of "all factories which, though industrial in time of! peace, may be converted to the production of munitions in time of war." We have nothing to add to the "Daily Telegraph's" comment: With the chemical and engineering industries, to name no others, swept oat of existence throughout the world, the face of civilisation would be changed even more completely than Bolshevism, in its pristine revolutionary enthusiasm, Imagined its being. That one detail of jthe proposals would suffice to stamp, them as a mere gesture, conceived with the carelessness of men who are thinking not of disarmament but of scaring a point, be it never so .unsubstantial, The unmitigated contempt,of the Preparatory Commission for Russia's hypocritical gesture was sufficiently displayed by the silence in which M. Litvinoff's eloquent peroration was received and by the tactful adjournment of his proposals undiscussed. The memorandum which the British Government has now submitted to the Security Sub-Committee is, as we have said, of an exactly oppor site character. Its sincerity is, of course, beyond question, but, in no other respect is it likely to give much satisfaction at Geneva. It emphasises the caution and the dislike of far-reaching and incalculable commitments which have always made the British attitude to the League equally disappointing to the sanguine idealists and to the calculating realists of the Continent. Yet this attitude is the inevitable outcome of Britain's national temperament and of the geographical position which makes her at once a semi-detached part of Europe and an island State with territory and trade in all parts of the world. In her domestic affairs she has always put the concrete before the abstract, distrusted general propositions, and settled difficulties as they arose in a piecemeal and practical fashion. Theoretically very imperfect, her method has often failed in practice, but with all

its- faults it has made her system of government a model for the world. Speaking broadly, one might say that Britain is perfectly consistent in desiring to apply at Geneva the principles which she has found to work at Westminster. It may no doubt be retorted that in signing the Covenant of the League she departed from those principles. The rigidity of Articles 10 and 16 certainly appears to indicate an American rather than a British origin, and America perhaps displayed less wisdom in devising these ties for others than in escaping from them herself. It is, however, generally agreed that those sweeping provisions cannot mean all they say, but there is no agreement as to the amendments that should be made. The militarists and pacifists of the Continent would be glad to see the obligations made more stringent and more definite. Britain declined to accept the Protocol which was devised for that purpose in 1924. She cannot guarantee every frontier in Europe and put her Navy at the service of an international tribunal in quarrels which are no concern of hers. She has undertaken the heavy but specific obligations of the Lo- j carno Treaty in regard to the frontiers of France, Belgium, and Germany, and her Memorandum suggests that those who desire to extend her responsibilities should first do as j much as she has already done.