ABOUT THE PACIFIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 120, 17 November 1936, Page 11

ABOUT THE PACIFIC

THE NATIONS PREPARE

SECURITY PACTS REFUSED

THROWN BACK ON ARMS

In the programme of the round tables at the Institute of Pacific Relations it was provided that if the discussion upon the proposal to create a pact for peace and security to include the nations of the Pacific area should end in a negative. " the conference should consider the alternative suggestion: that a regional pact under the League of Nations should be established, says a writer in the "Winnipeg Free Press." . \ This discussion ended, as well, in ai blank negative. This was the more re- j markable because eight of the eleven ■ countries represented in the conference were members of the League: Great Britain, the U.S.S.R.. China, France, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The formation of "regional pacts, it is insisted by all those who think that the Covenant of the League,should be reformed, is the right way to make the League effective. Such pacts, it is argued, are attainable whereas universatility for the League is not. The Pacific would seem to be ideally fitted for such a regional arrangement; because the list of League members given above shows such a preponderance of power that a peace guaranteed by them would hardly be challenged by even the most adventurous nation. This is particularly the case because co-opera-tion by the United States in the event of any breach of the peace occurring in the Pacific could be regarded; as highly probable. ■ It was an American writer who said that the foreign policy of the United States was controlled by geography, being for isolation in Europe, domination in the Americas, and co-operation in the Pacific. NOT EVEN SUGGESTED. But though kind words about collective security and its virtues were commonplaces in the discussions no single delegate from any Let-gue nation even suggested that collective security backed by League sanctions should be attempted in the Pacific. This showed how completely the decision made in 1931 by France and Great Britain when they decided that the writ of the League should not run in the Pacific had been accepted as fixing the con- j ditions under which the countries in] the Pacific area must live. "With both a purely Pacific pact and, a regional League pact eliminated, other suggestions looking towards minimising the prospects of war abounded. There should be a Commission—something like the CanadianAmerican Joint High Commissionpeaceably to adjust border disputes between Japan and the U.S.S.R. The Nine-Power Pact—which is still in existence in the opinion of most of the authorities present—should be enlarged by the addition of the U.S.S.R. Tjhere should be periodic Pacific conferences along the lines of the PanAmerican Congress. A limited security pact, on the basis of Locarno, should be signed by Japan, U.S.S.R., and China. Japan and China should settle; their differences amicably on justj terms (so easy to say, so hard to achieve). A non-aggression pact between U.S.S.R. and.Japan—offered by the former—would remove one explosive possibility. And so on. MERE TALKING POINTS. None of these suggestions were anything more than talking points. In fact there was a perfectly clear understanding and acceptance of the reality—that there are many danger points in the Far East, with no machinery available for discouraging an appeal to force and that the only possible protection against this danger is by the old-fashioned means of individual defence or by alliances. Of alliances there is only one—an agreement between Outer Mongolia (which is part of China) and the U.S.S.R. by which the latter undertakes to defend its ally. . , , In the atmosphere of uncertainty and fear the Pacific nations are arming for eventualities, as the conference was told. Eastern Russia from Lake Barkal to the ocean had been turned into an armed camp since 1931 with an army equal to that of Japan, a fleet of submarines, and a powerful air force within striking distance of Tokio. The delegation from the U.S.S.R. told the conference, with an air of confidence that plainly was not assumed, _ that their country was unconquerable in the East; at the same time they disclaimed any purpose of aggression. ■The Philippines are creating an army against the time'when they will be independent nine years hence; Australia is spending ten millions on defence this year; and the United States is adding to its navy at a rate that reduces Japan's desire to attain parity to a glimmering hope. REASON FOR BUILDING. Why is the United States building this immense fleet? In all the round tables Americans were challenged to answer that question. If. as a very vocal body of opinion in that country asserts, the United States will get out of the Orient in preference to defending>her interests there why this vast expenditure? Americans mostly parried ;the question, but Chester H. Rowell, editor of the "San Francisco Chronicle," essayed an answer: "The navy is the amplifier of the voice of the diplomat. The voice ofthe diplomat speaks exactly as loud as the potential voice of his cannon, and if those cannons are potentially loud enough they never have to be used because he will be heard. Now if the time should come in the future that once more the voice of American diplomacy would be raised upon the question of the Open Door i,n China, including the definition of that in the Nine Power Treaty, we should not wish the voice of our diplomats to be muzzled and unheard by the refusal of anybody to listen." This is plain enough. Now why this tension, this arming in hot haste, this foreseeing of trouble? Because there is in the Pacific a predominant Power, Japan, which, in the mood always induced in a nation by a wide margin of strength, has developed external policies threatening to her neighbours which she justifies by the argument, conclusive to herself, that they will serve the interests and advance the well-being of her people—who happen to be in their own view a chosen people with a mission to carry their civilisation to the outside worldUNIVERSAL SWAT. This is nothing new in the world — it has been recurring since the dawn ti time. For a fleeting moment this prerogative of power was under challenge; but Japan reasserted it for Asia in 1931 and since then it has resumed its universal sway. The right of Japan —if she has the power and deems it in her own interest and therefore in the interests of the whole world, which is the way dominant nations think —to give full effect to her ambitions and desires has thus been vindicated for the future and, by inference, retronctively. It. was therefore their natural politeness which led the Japanese delegates