AMERICA. AND EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18755, 8 January 1923, Page 9

AMERICA. AND EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY

M. CLEMEXCEAU’S MISSION. Written for the Otago Daily Times. By Fbank H. Siuondo. WASHINGTON, December 1. Not even the proceedings of Lausanne have served to distract public attention from the mission of C'lemeiicCa'u. He remains after two weeks' the liveliest bit of news in America. Yet a curious state of mind is beginning to reveal itself. There is a double feeling, un intense and widespread, pcrhaVs almost universal desire to find some, way of expressing admiration for the visiting statesman and affection for his country without either agreeing with him or in any degree suggesting that there can be any reversal of the American determination to have no further foreign commitments. In a way, the present episode recalls an American incident of two generations ago when Kossuth, fresh from the glories ot the Hungarian Revolution, came to the United States. His success was instantaneous and beyond anything in our tory save the final visit of Lafayette. Tno Hungarian Patriot was feted, praised, transported from one end of the country to the other and everywhere received with unlimited enthusiasm. Hie story of the Hungarian revolution was told and refold, and American admiration and sympathy had no limits in language. yet, in the end. since the objective of Kossuth was to obtain American aid for Hungary, then suffering under Austrian and Russian bayonets, the adventure which began so splendidly and lasted so magnificently ended in failure, for not a single American of the millions who cheered Kossuth had the smallest intention of sending ships or men to liberate the stricken Magyars. That America jhould intervene was outside of the wildest dream e£ any who acclaimed the gallant visitor. . Now, precisely this same thing is bound to happen in the case of Clemenceau. His reception is the reception which this country feels is due to a very groat man, citizen of the nation for which Americans have unmistakable affection. Even those who criticise find that their words awaken protest, that they are treated like those who disturb a public meeting. .The United States is a unit in the determination that every moment of “the Tiger” in the United States shall be such as to provide pleasant memories, but apart from the expression of friendly feeling, there is, in the American argot, literally “nothing doing.” As for Lausanne, there is no mistaking the nation-wide irritation over the fact that we seem to be getting involved. Iho criticism of Mr Hughes’s policy is two-fold. It comes from the Wilson quarter, where it is urged that Mr Hughes is more interested in oil than in humanity; and it comes from those who are neither >* nsonians nor Leaguers but feel that our presence at Lausanne is a mistake, because it tends to mix us up in matters wo had decided to have nothing to do with. Just now Washington is laying emphasis on secret treaties and old-fashioiisd diplomacy, and it is not a wholly unpopular appeal to make. The American audience likes to think of America in the missionary role; it likes to have jls own conscious moral superiority emphasised; but it has a terribly uncomfortable feeling that it will wake up some bright morning and find that in some fashion or other it has been persuaded to sign a paper or give some kind of an undertaking to do something specific in the way of word organisation. And that is precisely what the average American will not tolerate. His conception is that our international influence should be by example not by works, that we should show the world the way, but that, having done this, we should leave it to the world to follow or to reject. It is not true, as foreign newspapers are frequently suggesting, that American police aims at material ends by the use of moral weapons. We are a missionary people and we do not have any subliminal thought about founding colonies, economic or territorial. If the mass of the American people could be convinced that Europe would honestly and completely adopt American ideas about armaments and frontiers and such questions, they would unhesitatingly consent to the cancellation of the inter-Allied debts. The most effective argument against cancellation is not that it would increase taxes but that the money thus remitted would be used to carry out militaristic, imperialistic, and thus un-American ideas. ■ The suggestion that the policy of the present Administration, the course followed at Lausanne, has its origin in material objectives has put Mr Hughes on his tiefence and provoked more than one omoial and officious statement. What the average American wants is that his Government should contribute to abolish, not to divide the proceeds of, diplomatic adventure. The real troubles with the Clemenceau mission is that the things the former Premier preaches seem to us rank heresy. We believe that if the French would evacuate Germany the Germans would abandon all idea of revenge. When M Clemenceau talks to us about German plots and plans we feel that ho is really libelling human nature. Because he is a great man and an old man we do not argue with him violently; on the contrary we regret the probability that he will not repent, despite his approach to the inevitable end. He is not going to convert us. _ We feel sorry that we shall not convert him. V\o are uncomfortable at Lausanne because we do not see that this latest conference shows any signs of a Europe at last adopting 1 American ideas. Lausanne, like Geona, like the Paris Conference and all its successors, is criticised in America as a new evidence of the persistence of old-fashioned diplomacy. Clemenceau troubles us because ho continues to hold to views which we believe to be, if not wicked, at least survivals of a less virtuous age. The Clemenceau mission can only be regarded as a failure by those who expected specific results. If anyone imagined that he would be able after his visit to write “Africanus” after his name they were doomed to disappointment. He has rallied the friends ot France, he has mobilised latent affection, ho has triumphed in the imponderables. In reality there was only one thing which he could actually accomplish. He could demonstrate to Europe, and to France particularly, that no European, no matter what, his eminence, no matter what his relation to recent events, could Persuade Americans that thev bad a specific dntv in Europe or toward France. He could demonstrate that all foreign policy, all French policy based upon the conception that if America were pleased or satisfied American policy would be modified, is based upon a total misunderstanding of American fundamentals. If France goes to the .Ruhr there will be a flood of American criticism. If France stavs on the Rhine there will bo the some criticism. But if France refrains from both things, there will be no American action or gesture. The mere fact of such refraining will not convince Americans that thev ought to undertake my obligetinn with respect of France. In a word, if Clemencenu’s excursion was evangelical, if be came as a missionary, he must fail where no living man could succeed. Put if be came as an explorer, his discoveries ought to rank with those of Columbus, for. ho has, in fact, rediscovered America.