Evening Post. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1934. "FEET IN BOTH WORLDS"

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 118, 15 November 1934, Page 12

Evening Post. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1934. "FEET IN BOTH WORLDS"

| The fear of European entanglements, and the minimising' of the German, danger were two of the outstanding points in the speech of General Smuts at the Royal Institute |of International Affairs as reported on Tuesday. The two by which the regret of "Tho Times" that "a statement so wise had not come from the lips of a member of the Cabinet" was particularly inspired seem to have been the supreme importance attached by General Smuts to the imbroglio in the Far East and to the closer association of the Empire with the United States. Western civilisation will stand or fall, he said, in its contacts with Far Eastern peoples, which therefore make a special case for a diplomacy of "friendliness and understanding."

Tho British Commonwealth's association lies more, ho added, with tho United States than with any group in the world. Tho Dominions, owing to thoir community of outlook and interests, and porhaps destiny, have even stronger affiliations with America than with Britain. That fundamental affinity is, and must bo, tho real foundation of British foreign policy which ■wo ignore at our peril. i

In tlie first of these sentences General Smuts is claiming that the Empirq: as a whole has stronger associations with the United States than it has with such a group of European States as that, for instance, which was formed hy the Locarno Treaty lo guarantee the frontiers of France, Germany, and Belgium against; attack hy any one of those States. Not one of the Dominions has joined in thai guarantee. New Zealand distinguished herself by promising to do so and then backing out of it without a word of public explanation. But the safeguarding of those frontiers which is a life and death matter for Great Britain is of hardly distinguishable concern for the Dominions, and if, with or without their help, Britain fails in that object, it is certain, that the American foundation on which General Smuts proposes to reconstruct the Empire's foreign policy will not save ij from destruction. As we have printed it, the second of General Smuts's affirmations is fortunately less alarming than in the form which it had in the cabled version. Even for the South African cosmopolitanism of General Smuts the statement that the Dominions — not his own Dominion alone but all of them-—"have even stronger affiliations with America than with Britain" seemed to be excessive. It is true of the Irish Free State, and if not already true of Canada it very soon will be. But one might sup-v pose that even South Africa has a sufficient appreciation of the value of a sea power, which.she does not provide for herself, and which the United States will certainly not supply gratis as Britain does, to resent such a statement. The omission, however, of the second "with" from the phrase "have even stronger affiliations with America than with Britain" makes all the difference, and that this will give the correct form is proved by the reference = to' the passage in the comment of "The Times" which was cabled yesterday: The" British Commonwealth, as General Smuts understands it, has its feet in both worlds, old and new. : The Dominions have oven stronger affiliations than Great Britain: with the United States. . .■■ It certainly may he said of the Dominions as a whole that they have stronger affiliations with the United States than Britain has, but not that they have stronger affiliations with the United States than they have with Britain; arid the first of these statements fits General Smuts's argument just as well as the other. The principal reason why most of the Dominions have stronger affiliations than Britain has with the United States is that the American colonies, which afterwards became the United States, were affiliated to Britain in the literal sense, and that neither party has; ever quite recovered from the shock of, separation. An additional reason is .that almost the whole weight of the Empire's foreign policy is carried by Britain alone, and though the Dominions have very rarfely dissented, the ill feeling arising from the frequent clashes with the United States has also been hers alone. Canada has, however, lately taken over the direct charge of her relations with the United States, and has to some extent realised her ambition of improving the relations between the principals—if, after the adoption of the Balfour formula, the terni is permissible. But Canada's growing intimacy with her great

neighbour1 appears to be steadily weakening her attachment to the Empire, arid to be strengthening her tendency to look to the Monroe Doctrine as a better defence than an Imperial Navy. If, however, "the real foundation of British Empire foreign policy" is to be found, as General Smuts saysj in an Anglo- | American understanding, there will be no divided allegiance to prevent Canada from promoting it. . So far, however, the United States has been almost as reluctant as the Dominions themselves to look facts in the face and to take the responsibilities 'of foreign policy seriously. ' Its refusal to enter the League of Nations struck a grievous blow at the "great organisation of which President Wilson was one of the principal founders, rendered the enforcement of the' sanctions provided by the Covenant virtually impossible, and has to a steadily increasing extent narrowed the activity of the League to purely European functions. But in the Kellogg Pact American diplomacy has since given the world a good lead, and though it still remains to a very large extent a dead letter, it has already rendered an important service by effecting a vital change in the pre-War conception of the rights of neutrals. To,detach Britain as far as possible from European responsibilities, to relieve the League by a system of regional security pacts, and to get the Kellogg Pact jnlo working order—these are the objects for which some of the wisest friends of peace in Britain are pressing strongly. Their hopes are indicated in the June number of the "Round Table" as follows:—

It is- the .nations that in pre-War parlance were called neutral who are the real foundation for the collective system, not tho war-maddened peoples of Europe. The plain duty of the Britlah Commonwealth, which, has already, demonstrated how to work a collective system within, its own boundaries, is to give tho lead required to make the pacific part of the world an effective force, under the Kellogg Pact, against aggression' and militarisni. But tho first step towards such a policy must be disentanglement from automatic commitment in what Sir Wilfrid Laurior used to call "the vortox of European militarism." And that is really tho first step towards making possible tho re-emergence of tho League as tho central peace machinery of mankind: