THE WORLD COURT

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1935, Page 7

THE WORLD COURT

AMERICA’S REPUDIATION. THE REAL POSITION DISCLOSED. Varied explanations as to the reasons why the American Senate refused to join the World Court have appeared in Great Britain. It is important, however, that the real facts should be known, however unpalatable they may be-m particular that about war debts. The Christian Century, the leading religious weekly of America, says: “Before those who favoured American entrance into the Court dismiss this defeat as. merely the work of demagogues and inept Parliamentary tacticians, let them look certain plain facts in the face. “Setting to one side all the balderdash and all the downright lying which were flung about in this struggle, there yet remain three factors which are amply sufficient to explain why hosts of Americans made plain their reluctance 'to see their natjon take the. step proposed by the president. “Those three factors are the post-war disillusionment, the general resentment over debt repudiations, and the suspicion with regard to the purposes, of a Court which renders advisory opinions. “Little needs to be said concerning the post-war disillusionment of the American people, except to say that it is deeper and more bitter to-day than ever. The masses of this nation are cynical over the purposes for which the war was fought, and more cynical over its outcome. SEEM A BETRAYAL. 1 • • “The sacrifices made to overthrow the Hohenzollerns, in order to bring in Hitler, seem to millions one of the most ghastly betrayals in history. Such revelations as have recently come from the inquiry into the armaments industry add to this common feeling. A bitterness results which, whether justly or unjustly, extends to all the agencies of Versailles. “The American public, in other words, began, to suspect as long ago as 1919 that the Treaty of Versailles was ethically rotten. It would not lift a finger to grant permanence to that Treaty. And its deepest determination at this moment is never to become involved again in commitments out of which similar instruments of international immorality may come. “There are persons in the United States—especially along the Atlantic seaboard —as well as in Europe who have no conception of the resentment felt by the masses in this country at, the repudiation of the war debts. It is. idle to attempt an argument as to the special nature of those debts, or to point out the small effect which their non-payment has on the nation’s tax bill, or to seek to raise a counter-argument with regard to the ‘repudiation’ involved in America's recent gold policy. “To the American public at large t one fact, and one fact only, matters. European.nations have repudiated debts honestly incurred, after having been given what the American is convinced were remarkably generous terms of settlement. That means, in the eyes of the man on the American street, that the nations of Europe are dishonest. That means that the less America has to do with them the better. “It is well to state the case thus baldly, for only as it is so faced can its force be appreciated. Argument as to the merit of this public feeling has only minor relevancy. The existence of the feeling is the fact which must be taken into account, “From the beginning, the provision for

advisory opinions has been an obstacle in the way of American entrance into the World Court. The reservations adopted by the Senate in 1926, and the reservations proposed this year, have all had to do with the advisory opinions. The amendment of the constitution of the Court, made in 1929 in answer to American objections, was an attempt to convince the United States that, the dangers of a misuse of the advisory opinion function of the Court has been guarded against. , . . “Nevertheless, the fact of the advisory opinion remains, and so long as it remains it will militate against American confidence in the Court. Advisoiy opinions are, per se, repugnant to the whole genus of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. In the case of this particular Court, they constitute its one indisputable connection with the League. Every time the Court renders such an opinion it by so much adds to the belief that its function is political. “The verdict rendered by the Court in the Austro-German Customs Union case of 1931, which was used so effectively by opponents of Court entrance to prove the political nature, of its decisions, was an advisory opinion. , Its purpose and its nature were political, and all the buttery talk in the world could not disguise that fact. And it is quite possible that popular suspicion of the Court’s good faith will not subside sufficiently to make a new campaign for entrance practicable until the Court has rid itself of the advisory opinion feature altogether. “TO HELL WITH EUROPE!” “To point out these reasons why so large a part of the public approved the decision of the Senate is not to minimise the gravity of the situation revealed by the vote and campaign, which preceded it. That raucous cry which rose from the floor of the Senate, ‘To hell with Europe!’ reflects a state of mind which, in the long run, can produce nothing but tragedy. . “It , would be a wholesome thing if now, the country over, individuals and groups, who do not believe in committing America to a future of irresponsible isolationism, would write to their Senators, letting them know that the public opinion which can be marshalled by a Father Coughlin and a William Randolph Hearst is not the only public opinion in the nation. “But this resumption of steady effort to bring the power of the United States to bear on the building of a world order in which ‘law not war’ shall be the ultimate appeal should proceed in the light of realities. “It is fruitless to ask for American participation in the European system while that system remains founded on the immoralities of Versailles, insists on debt repudiations, and subjects its judicial Bench to the political purposes of the advisory opinion. It is still the conviction of the Christian Century that the next step which the United States should take in discharging its responsibilities to world peace is entrance into the Permanent Court for International Justice. Such entrance will become possible, however, only when the Court has been clearly set free from implication in the European political system.”