Evening Post. MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1928. THE IRONIES OF 1928

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 150, 31 December 1928, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1928. THE IRONIES OF 1928

On the 31st December, 1927, we noted that the failure of the Naval Limitation Conference through the inability' of the representatives of Great Britain and the - United States .to come .to an agreement was the most grievous disappointment oF the year from the British standpoint. It was, we wrote, a master stroke of irony, indeed, - which: consummated - that deplorable ; fiasco, on ;' the i &th I August— the,»aniuversary of Britain's^entry; into the '.■; War, : in.; which' ;the '•' : United '< States was : afterwards fighting "on'her side!' -At Geneva, the- two' English-speaking Powers; which in agreement could: guarantee the peace of the world revealed their", inability to, agree on a fairly, simple issue, or even to understand one another... ■ To repair that colossal blunder must be one of the rparamount .aims ;pf British statesmanship in 1928.! Measured by that test British statesmanship;must be .admitted to have failed i egregipusly; V Instead: of re-, pairing the colossal blunder of. 1927, our 'statesmen haye indefinitely .aggravated its effects; by another of at least equal magnitude. • In spite of the grave warning of the \, Geneva fiasco^"they1 have^^bltodered again in much the same way} and in relation to precisely the same subject matter, and the second-offence is necessarily both more- inexcusable and more disastrousi than the/ .first ■■■;.:;. If the outstanding, event -pi 1927, in international affairs was the Anglo-Ameri-can disagreement at Geneva,' it is to be feared that the widening of? the breach must be'; awarded the same precedence;in 1928.; :,':■'■] ;:' ■": The irony which marked thevtiming of last year's has been even more: conspicuous in the extension and aggravation: of; it;:;; ;iThe Anglo-French ■: naval 'compromise, which has excited .so. much, suspicion and resentment-.inf the United States; was a transparently; honest: attempt to get over the difficulty in a. manner which was-recognised by both parties to require the approval of the United States Government before it could be anything better than waste-paper/ 'Anglo-French: "differences regarding, the; basis of limitation/ had blocked the progress of^the Preparatofy Disarmaments Commission just ,as Anglo-American ■;; differences; Mad wrecked the Three: Power Naval Limitation Conference}. ' The! differences between.Britain and France were provisionally settled .-.'byV a . compromise which, if accepted by the United States, would resolve both these deadlocks., Butthe.; arrangement; was really no comprohiiseat all so far as the United States was concerned, since it affirmed the same principles of. rcpiiser m limitation which, .the American had refused to accept: at; the Geneva^::: Conference. at a*loss to understand why-Sir Austen .Chamberlain and M. Briarid were so'simple-minded as to suppose that an arrangement which merely compromised their own differences could possibly be. acceptable at Washington. ; But that it was a case pfysimplicity and riot'of the duplicity and the cunning with which they .were charged by' the American Press was as.plain as daylight. How could.there be any: wickedness in submitting to the United.? States -and other leading Powers a written proposal which, as Sir Austen publicly said, ;would be inoperative 'without' theirjcdnsent-?'":;;:;I.;'':;'^^ ■"■': ■''' }' ', It, is '^fortunately ' unnecessary- to recapitulate the details of the wretch-, edprocess^by .which theestrangeiuent of 1927, was in 1928. American editors worked themselves and, their;readers... into: a paroxysm of patriotic fury over, tlie trickery by which Britain ; and France . had .endeavoured to steal a march on, an innocent and unsuspecting peoplei The task was made easier by. the free play allowed to the; imagination through1 the withholding of the text and by semi-official statements which, instead of sounding a restraining note,: plainly, indicated the indignation of the White House. The irony by which the bungling attempt of the British,and French Governments at peace-making precipitated all this pugnacity was enhanced, like that of last year's muddle, by the timing. The ;;outstanding ■•;■,-date of the. year should have ■ been the 27th August, when the Treaty for the Renunciation of War was signed at Paris by six of the 'leading.Poyvers of the world and nine others; But for the three greatest of the signatories—Britain, France; and the United States—and probably for the rest of the world, the importance of the great event was completely overshadowed by the dissensions in which the, proposed naval • compromise had resulted. Whether the Peace Pact is to mean much or little to the world must depend less upon its terms than upon the spirit in which it is mterpxeted by. the signatories, and especially the United States. The footnote which Mr. • Kellogg appended to his. Pact Avhen lie found himself unable to exchange courtesies with the British

Government on his way back from Paris did not give this work a very encouraging start. The ironies of 1928 have been well, sustained to the; very end, and are appropriately centred at Washington. The Senate has for some time been wrestling with the ratification of the Peace Pact and with the Navy Bill which is. the President's answer to the defunct compromise, and the struggle for priority has resulted in the postponement of both over the holidays. From the standpoint of humour it would be a glorious joke if the United States refused to ratify its own Peace Pact, but the chances are: that both measures will go; through. The Pact may make for peace, but the Navy ; Bill certainly will not. By increasing the. risk of the collision which those who find thinking unpleasant declare to be "unthinkable," it will, however, increase the obligations of the statesmen, of the English-speaking Powers to tackle the problem which they nave: muddled so badly during the last two years. .. An Anglo-American understanding would make the Peace Pact nearly as good as it looks. An Anglo-American clash would week both the Peace Pact and the League of Nations ariS ! might even wreck civilisation. |V .■'