INTERNATIONAL PEACE

Hokitika Guardian, 28 September 1929, Page 8

INTERNATIONAL PEACE

(Auckland Paper.)

Remembering the recent successes which the British Labour Government has scored in the sphere of foreign affairs, in regard to reparations, the evacuation of the Rhineland and the “ optional clause,” it is easy to understand the confident, not to say triumphant, tone in which the British Eoreigit Minister, on his return from Geneva, has expressed himself about the international situation. But while Mr Henderson takes a characteristically optimistic view of the effects likely to be produced by the general acceptance of the optional clause, it must not be forgotton that the course which Britain and the Dominions have adopted is not without its difficulties and dangers. At the very moment when iur Henderson is celebrating this victory for arbitration, Professor J. H. Morgan, our greatest authority on constitutional law, warns us that our ad herence to the optional clause may possibly result in the disintegration ol the Empire. For the Irish Free State, having signed without reservations, may submit the Anglo-Irish treaty to the International Court for interpretation, and may quite conceivably secede from the Empire altogether; while India, which has expressed a desire to sign, may, if it secures Dominion status, summon before the Court those Dominions that attempt to restrict or exclude Oriental immigration. It is true that hitherto immigration has been regarded as a matter of domestic policy. But it should be remembered that Japan has already made a determined effort to induce the League of Nations to treat immigration as a matter Of international concern, and another attempt which is now threatened in this direction may be more successful. It may be as well to remember that the acceptance of the optional clause requires to be ratified by the governments of all- the contracting Powers; and it is possible that the position may thus be ultimately modified. But under the circumstances we may well wonder if the Americans have not chosen the wiser course in refusing to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court without very substantial reservations.

Apparently Mr Henderson still has good hopes even of the Americans. For he has announced that the Assembly of the League has unanimously adopted a protocol which in his opinion should-enable the United States to accept the jurisdiction of the International Court. Ilf it is to have this effect it must cover at least the conditions laid down in Mr Root’s formula, which the American Government has substituted for the reservations originally proposed by the Senate. The most important of these reservations was to the effect that the Court should not, without the consent of the United States, “entertain any request for an advisory opinion touching any dispute in \vnich the United States had ,or claimed an interest.” This reservation would, of course, nullify the value of America’s formal adherence to the Court, and Mr Root’s proposal for a preliminary conference between the parties to such a dispute, so as to permit either a compromise or withdrawal of the appeal, though it may “ save face ” for the Court or for Washington, does not improve the position materially. In any case, if the Americans do not get their way, Mr Root agrees with the Senate that they may withdraw from membership of the Court; and in view of the wide range of dangerous contingencies that the optional clause opens up, it might be well for Britain and the Dominions to leave open this way of escape from what might otherwise prove an impossible situation.