DISARMAMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20922, 11 July 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

DISARMAMENT.

AMERICA'S ATTITUDE,

BY MATANGA.

It is a somewhat comic fact that the nation making most to-do about scrapping armaments is most bent on building up a big navy. To be sure, that nation is not alone in this incongruity. Since the grim tragedy of the iVar the world has naturally turned for relief to broad farce, and gone beyond the boflnds of private theatricals in this particular enjoyment. But the star part has been claimed by Uncle Sam. * He has time and again spoken his lines with great gusto, calling on all others to be good little boys—all the while dropping terrible hints about what lie will do with his warships—"Yes, sirree; and don't you forget it!"—and-varying his solemn counsels occasionally with a song and dance and a little juggling turn'with that bauble "parity." There ought to bo no surprise at this bellicose bearing of Uncle Sam, so entertainingly mingled with sounding diatribes against war. His country was born in war. Hence the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." The famous Boston tea party of long ago had more than a touch of violence. Most vigorous of all the passages in the Declaration of Independence is its studied fury about a certain King George—a fulmination that must have given Big .Bill Thompson his cue for an equally furious threat as to what lie would do to another foreign king of the name should he dare fo show his nose in that model city where the noble art of small-arms drill has been preserved in perfection. The great names that come easily to American tongues from the storied past are those of military engagements and stout generals, ■ and not for nothing,' then, was the head of the army chosen to be first President and a bird of prey taken for a national symbol. It is not easy to outgrow such things, as is witnessed by the veneration still accorded to the Monroe Doctrine, with its unfeignedly militant threat to peoples disinclined to keep their hands off the New World. Habits formed in youth die hard. Two Americas. But there are two Americas, using the name in a sense other than that of the geographers who labelled as two continents the vast territories since divided by the Panama Canal—the sense in which the United States people have appropriated the name foe their own peculiar use. These two Americas are found within the United States boundaries, perhaps within the hearts of most American citizens.

One is all for national aggression, commercial conquest, dictation from a pinnacle aloof to the Old World, held much in contempt and suspicion. This is America at its worst",..unlovely, sordid. It finds loud expression in the " big navy " programme, in argument as to who " won the war," in tariff schedules, in some circulars of commercial drummers, in some Hollywood productions. It multiplied reservations to adherence to the Court of International Justice, and has persisted in keeping out of the League of Nations. Professing a fear of " entanglement " in horrid European affairs, strangely belied by frank eagerness to establish business agencies )n every European country, it has denied all rights of other lands to enjoy full human fraternity and left undone many; duties of world-wide service. The case against this America has, grown, year by year, with the increasing wealth and power of the United States.

. Thanks be, there is another America, and the greater it'grows the more glad will other peoples be. It is great already. This is the America that fought to free slaves, that became inspired with a vision of real democracy, that treasured ideals inherited from much that was magnificent in the Old World. From' it came a literary product excellent in sentiment and strong in workmanship. It has given gladly of its wealth to scientific research, especially in avenues of beneficent toil. It has kept faith in human brotherhood. This America lives in countless hearts under the Stars and Stripes. .You may hear less. from it 'than from the other America, apt to drown with strident bombast the quieter greetings of goodwill. It has no love of the political drum, and does not murderously go mad on the Glorious Fourth,, But it thinks and loves and prays, and covets no higher happiness than a fhare in all men's good. War Debts and War. It does speak up sometimes. It did at a Washington round table, set in 1921. It was heard from the head of another table, in Paris, when the League of Nations was given shape. The Briandfcellogg Peace Pact was its expression, although prior honour for that belongs to France. Again and again it has pressed for United States membership in the League, for the cancellation of war debts, for being done with inhuman isolation. And it has made itself felt' in much splendid co-operation, in many tasks of the League. Its day is waxing

To this America must be attributed the Hoover proposals for the suspension of war debts. Doubtless, the scheme is worldly-wise; hence its general American support. But it is an outcome of more than commercial astuteness. Especially notable is its relation to disarmament.

In February next there will meet at Geneva the League conference on this urgent theme, a conference fully international and amply anticipated by the prolonged work of an expert commission. No merely naval pact is in prospect; land and air forces as well will be_under discussion, and all national budgets for every belligerent. purpose, offensive and defensive. The world cannot afford a failure. An Atmosphere of Hope. Hopes raised a decade ago at Washington have been dashed. The apple cart at Geneva in 1926, when President Coolidge summoned a few Powers to talk things over, was American obduracy about " parity " more than anything else. At London last year, with the United States again interested as a prime mover, there was no real achievement. Now the biggest and most hazardous venture is to be made, and a great deal depends on the spirit in which it is approached. A disgruntled Germany, a timorous France, a dissatisfied Italy, an anxious Britain —types of all the rest —would smother hope. Economic pressure alone could not induce sanity; optimism is an essential part of that. To have the war debts out of the way for a while, albeit the knowledge that they are to be shouldered afresh a few months later will administer a tincture of care, is a master 6troke. The tang of conflict will have time to leave the mouth, and armaments be more calmly pondered. Eyen some return of economic buoyancy will make hand-clasps across frontiers more joyous. There will have been experienced a relief in removing from budgets a damnosa hereditas of war, and to cut down or even remove other charges of the sortr-war debts in advance, in sober reality—will be all the more possible. So, to give America her due, let it be said with utter sincerity and full ardour that in the proposal for a suspension of war debts, whatever its economic bearing, there was offered a vital contribution to the prospects of the disarmament conference. When America goes to Geneva in February, may there be good reason to remember this, and—who knows ?—persuasion of events to induce her to remain within the circle of a concert of the world.