The Evening Star THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 1928. HOW MUCH ARBITRATION?

Evening Star, Issue 19768, 19 January 1928, Page 6

The Evening Star THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 1928. HOW MUCH ARBITRATION?

Skcl itiTy or Disarmament, which comes first P The Leavitt of Nations was forced to the conclusion last year that it could malic no progress with disarmament till it could reduce the nations’ tears of further wars, ami a committee was set up to. co-operate with the. Disarmament Committee, taking security, and tho means of increasing it, as its special held of investigation. Tho British Government, among others, was asked to submit ideas Tor the guidance of this committee in its work, and it has done so in a memorandum of which a forecast is given to-day. The memorandum, wc have been told, is not a complete scheme for the render-’ ing of security. That was nob requested. it is an indication of tho linos of approach to a solution of this great problem which may, from Great Britain's viewpoint, be hopefully investigated, and of those which may most profitably he left alone at tho present juncture, because she is not ready’ to approve of them. The British Government is not ready, it is explained, to take more responsibilities upon itself lor the peace of special frontiers than it has taken already, for that of tho western frontier of Germany, by the Locarno pact. Sjt purity for the world’s peace cannot be provided by one, or three or four nations. The first way by which somettiing more can bo done for security will be for other nations to follow the example of Great .Britain in making Locarno pacts for other unsettled regions, It is also set forth that Britain is not prepared to sign tho optional clause in respect of arbitration by The Hague International Court. This last .statement will not como as a surprise. The refusal, and the reasons for it, were announced quite definitely by Sir Austen Chamberlain in the censure debate in the House of Commons which followed Lord Cecil’s resignation. The case of the Foreign Secretary was that it would be quite impracticable for Great Britain to accept this optional clause, binding it beforehand to submit virtually every dispute which might arise to arbitration, nntil the whole Empire was ready to accept it. “The embarrassment to all of ns would be obvious,” he declared, “il one member of the Empire were engaged in a dispute which another member of the Empire had undertaken to arbitrate whilst he himself had not clone so. It would make our position here one in which—as I think it would be admitted by all who know our constitutional system—it would be impossible for us to carry out the engagements we should have undertaken.” He quoted a statement of Lord Haldane, who was Lord Chancellor in the Labor Government, on the question of which the important portion was as follows;—“Speaking for myself, 1 think it safer, in the present state of tho Constitution of our Empire, to avoid trying to go further than article 13 of the covenant of the League of Nations. This article binds us to arbitrate on any matter which is suitable and which diplomacy cannot satisfactorily settle, including the interpretation of treaties, questions of international law, the existence of facts constituting a breach of international obligations, and the extent of the reparation to be made. 1 agree wir-h Lord Balfour that resort to the Permanent Court is likely, by degrees, to become more and more general, and in tho end it will probably become compulsory, but this requires time to enable a firm conception of Empire fully to become familiar to our own people. At present I am adverse to the explicit acceptance of a- principle which will probably give rise, if so accepted, to keen controversy.” Sir Austen added that it was common ground among British parties that if Great Britain did sign the optional clause shv would sign it only with reservations. She would have to reserve the question of naval belligerent rights, <ui which no great body of Jaw for the guidance of arbitration at present existed, and she would have to reserve everything that concerned the relations of the Empire as between its parts. Such acceptance would have small value for the world at large. The argument of Sir Austen Chamberlain and Lord Haldane was not combatted in. the speeches that followed.