REASON AND FORCE

Southland Times, Issue 19345, 10 September 1924, Page 4

REASON AND FORCE

If the nations within the League of Nations commit themselves to undertakings involving the use of peaceful arbitration whenever international disputes arise, they will be doing no more than the terms of the League Covenant enjoined by direction and by inference, because the basic principle of the League is the elimination of force for the settlement of quarrels between nations. The Covenant makes provision for the use of force, but that is only where a nation offending against the League of Nations has to be brought to discipline by the other members of the League. Mr Ramsay MacDonald and M. Herriot have made a gesture in the direction of international pacificism, and any measure which will lead to the employment of reason instead of artillery for the settlement of disputes must be hailed with pleasure; but such an arrangement can be truly effective only if there exists a concurrent understanding that those who offend against the arbitration principle, will be punished. For many years the arbitration treaty between the United States and Britain has been in operation, and it has been in the fullest sense effective, because on neither side has there been any attempt to defeat, by threat or trickery, the findings of the arbitratal tribunals. But neither country has decreased its armaments because of the existence of this treaty, because there are other nations not so ready to commit themselves to arbitration who must be taken into account. To-day, the sanctity of treaties is an important international principle, and when confidence in the binding powers of these “scraps of paper” increases, the expansion of International Arbitration will be rapid. An InterAllied Disarmament Conference will certainly attract attention, and provide an attractive platform for the politicians, but while there are important and potentially powerful nations outside of the scope of these meetings, the confidence to ensure substantial armament reductions will be too weak to function usefully. Washington provided a Naval holiday for capital ships and submarines, but a reduction in military armament is so much more intricate that it is difficult to see, at this stage, how much progress can be made. Certainly the League of Nations wants added strength, so that it can deal effectively with any case on all fours with the Greco-Italian trouble,

when at Mussolini’s orders, Corfu was immediately shelled under circumstances which were not much different from those which rallied the Allies to the aid of Serbia in 1914, and launched the Great War. Mussolini then told the League to mind its own business, and that august body, after some speeches, preserved what it was pleased to call its dignity, by allowing the Ambassadors’ Conference, which Mussolini had already accepted, to take up the quarrel. The dastardly bombardment of Corfu was diplomatically forgotten. Any extension of the League’s powers, any move by the nations represented to ensure action without fear or favour of an offending nation which will make such bombardments too costly for repetition, will be of value; but it will be found before many years are gone that the Armenian problem, mentioned by Dr. Motta, the President of the Assembly, will provide some pretty puzzles for the gathered Powers, unless they can leave outside the Assembly Hall their national jealousies and purely national interests. By the opinions expressed following on the speeches of Mr Ramsay MacDonald and M. Herriot, the League of Nations has moved in the direction of International Arbitration, and of arms reduction; but what would be the outcome to-day, of an appeal to refer the dispute in Morocco to the League? If the League’s Courts held against the Moors, the decision would be of small value a few miles south of the Spanish lines. The League is still weak, still an academic force; and its growth is gradual. These expansions in favour of the use of reason in preference to force—which settles disputants rather than disputes—are to be applauded, but if they are accepted as reasons for actual disarmament, they are more dangerous to the peace of the world than the Nationalists of Germany, or the Communists of Russia.