THE H.B. TRIBUNE TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1927 UNFORTUNATE MISTAKES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 201, 9 August 1927, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1927 UNFORTUNATE MISTAKES.

LORD BALFOUR is not a man to speak as one of yesterday’s cable messages reported him as speaking unless he had the best of good warrant for what he had to say and also realised an urgent necessity for saying it. He is pre-eminently one, even among British statesmen, who weighs his words well before he utters them, who appreciates the meaning and value of every one of them to the full, and who is never carried away with the “exuberance of his own verbosity.” It may thlis be taken without the slightest need for any mental reservation that what he tells us now about the misquotation of his remarks made at the Washington Naval Disarmament Conference of 1921-22 is absolutely correct. This misquotation, with its consequent misinterpretation, 's attributable not only to those sections of the American press which have done so much to render the Geneva Conference abortive and to stir up an unfriendly spirit towards Great Britain, but also to the Mr. Gibson, the leader of the American delegation at the latter assembly. We may join with Lord Balfour in the kindly assumption that the mistake was entirely due to inadventure. But this does not by any means free from blame one «'ho was entrusted, -m behalf of a hundred million people, with a mission of such profound importance as that committed to Mr Gibson. •

It is altogether unfortunate, too, (hat this misrepresentation however innocent, of Great Britain by a responsible American representative

should follow so closely upon a similar slip on the part of the President himself. It will be remembered that only some three or four m.onths ago the Faculty of a big American university addressed to Mr. A. W. Mellon, Secretary of the United States Treasury, a strong protest against the stiff attitude which the American Government had adopted with regard to the settlement of inter-Allied war debts. 'Firstly on moral and then on economic grounds, they pointed out that the stand taken up was neither worthy of a great and prosperous nation dealing with those who had been its comrades in a war fought in a common cause nor, in the end, likely to work for America’s material advantage. To this publicly made protest Mr. Mellon replied with a letter of vindication which not on’y found its way into every American newspaper of any standing, but was nlso broadcast throughout the Press of the whole world. It was only thus that it came under the notice of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, who at once detected in it a gross errtir in the presentation of the facts as they affected his Government. When this mistake wa s pointed ml to him Mr. Mellon contented himseif with assigning it to an omission -m the part of his typiste and with an assertion that, in any event, it occurred in a purely domestic discussion with which the outside world had nothing whatever to do. Whether Mr, Gibson will have any better answer to give Lord Balfour than Mr. Mellon had for Mr. Winston Churchill remains yet to be seen. The importance of mistakes sut-ii as these is difficult to measure, simply because it is difficult also to measure the effect they have, not io much as between the Governments, as between the two peoples they represent. First impressions thus created are apt to be very hard io remove. Even when explanations come that may be accepted as satisfactory to the diplomats, there is still something remaining that rankles in the mind of the man in the street. They have thus a very definite effect in delaying the “perfect understanding” between the two nations that we’ are told is of so vital moment both to themselves and to civilisation at large, The Briton, however, is very much more disposed than the American to let such things as these pass out of mind, unless something occurs to revise the feeling they evoked. It is therefore all the more to be regretted that two mistakes so much alike should have Aillowed so closely one upon the other. As to the effect that Mr. Gibson’s may have had upon the course of the proceedings at Geneva it may be readily conceived that it would turn the current altogether away. He was proceeding upon an altogether false assumption as to the general commitment which Lord Balfour had made on behalf of Great Britain some five or six years ago. This possibly accounts for the altogether unyielding attitude be took up at the shirt and maintained throughout, despite t.l.e cogent arguments adduced by Mr. Bridgeman to induce some modification of it. On the eve of the opening of the Geneva Conference the Washington correspondent of the “Times,” with considerable prescience, pointed out that there would almost inevitably be some trouble involved tn reconciling the American point of view, as he understood it, with the British. At the very least, he said, what Americans were aiming at was an equality with Great Britain at sea. He doubted but little that the qualification of this ambition, as a mere national aspiration, would be granted, but the trouble was to be feared when it came to settling as to how this equality was to be expressed in the constitution of the respective navies. This forecast has been amply justified in the result, the American Government, and doubtless the American people nlso, heinn altogether unready to make any concession to Britain’s obvious and essential requirements.