WORLD AFFAIRS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 365, 5 March 1932, Page 26 (Supplement)

WORLD AFFAIRS.

A Weekly Review of Current Events. POSITION IN THE EAST. (By BYSTANDER.) The Council of the League persuaded China and Japan to send delegates to a conference on board a British cruiser at Shanghai, and there, in the presence of the British Admiral, they have accepted an agreement which seems likely to put a stop to hostilities at least for the time. The terms were drafted by M.Paul Boncour, President of the Council of the League, who proposed a conference at which Japan must disclaim any territorial ambitions and China must pledge herself to protect international interests at Shanghai. These conditions were accepted, and the two disputants have agreed to withdraw their forces “ mutually and simultaneously ” from the militarised areas. This means at least an armistice, but coming at this precise juncture, the cessation of hostilities may well foreshadow Japan’s complete abandonment of this ill-starred enterprise. For at this moment comes news of a renewal of friendly relations between China and Russia, coupled with an admission from Nanking that China’s patience is exhausted with waiting for help that never comes, from Europe or America, and as the Western world and the League of Nations seem to have deserted her, she has turned for “ aid and comfort ” to the Soviet Republic. And what this may mean to the world at large I am not inclined to predict at a moment’s notice. Alternatives to War. I have been informed by a member of that small section of the general public which pays me the compliment of reading these notes that I have been trying to stir up war between Britain and Japan. This rather amazes me, because I have been careful to avoid any suggestion that Britain is bound to use force in this quarrel. I have quoted the Covenant of the League to show that all the signatory Powers—including, of course, Britain as well as Japan—bind themselves to punish aggressors in various ways; but even in Article XVI., the use of actual force is treated only as a final expedient when other methods have failed. There can hardly be a doubt that a general economic and financial boycott of any aggressor State and its nationals, supported by the Great Powers, would reduce it to submission at once. It is, of course, true that both Britain and the United States have so far repudiated the idea of boycotting Japan or ostracising her people. But this only means that the League, if it will not use the boycott even as an alternative to armed force, can do absolutely nothing to stop a war when once it has begun. My argument all along has been that, as it seems impracticable to employ forcible means, the refusal of the League to use the boycott* simply amount to a complete abdication of its responsibilities and a public admission of its helplessness. Why Not a Boycott?

Though I admit that the boycott would mean much loss and economic disorganisation to an already distracted world, I cannot see that this would be so dire an evil as another great war. Even in America there is a strong body of opinion favourable to this policy. Professor Whitton, of Princeton, has lately written an International Peace pamphlet on the Kellogg-Briand Pact, in which he insists that the pledge taken by the Powers to abolish war is quite valueless unless it is enforced by appropriate sanctions, and he analyses at length the various forms of embargo on finance, arms and trade, which, in his opinion, the United States could safely and effectively apply in such an emergency as this. But however this may be, the conclusiftn of my argument is, and always has been, not that Britain ought to go to war, but that if Britain and the other States decline to do anything to make the Covenant and the Peace Pact and the Nine Powers Treaty more valuable than waste paper, the League of Nations might as well “resolve itself into its constituent elements ” without further needless delay. What of Disarmament?

Personally, I am not one of the enthusiasts who apparently expected the League of Nations to convert the whole world to universal peace “ in a moment and the twinkling of an eye”; and so I am not much surprised at its failure to straighten out this Far Eastern tangle. But whether the failure be temporary or final, there can be no doubt that it must have a disastrous effect on the prospects of Disarmament. The outbreak of hostilities in the Far East portended the postponement of the Disarmament Conference, and it signified to all the nation States that they need not expect the League to do anything effectual in defence of their “ territorial integrity ” on their rights and liberties. But, tnore important than all, they have drawn the natural and necessary inference that if they are to have security they must provide it for themselves by their own efforts; and so the way is open for the revival of armament races by sea and land once more. France,' of course, is the favourite “ shocking example ” of contemporary militarism, in the mouths of professional pacifists or political enemies. Two or three weeks ago Mr Lloyd George aired his bitter prejudice against France by charging her with trying to dominate Europe by her armies and air fleets and derided the French statesmen for signing “ all the brilliant peace, arbitration and disarmament proposals put before them.” It seems appropriate to remind ourselves that Britain and many other Powers besides France have signed all these treaties, and have had to stand by helplessly while the flame of war was kindled in China. Dr \ en, speaking for his unfortunate country at Geneva a few days ago, remarked that “there cannot be a’desire for disarmament on the part of China while a militarist nation is allowed to hurl her powerful war machine against a peaceful neighbour in defiance of all her solemn peace pledges.” That is a terribly effective comment on the failure of the League, and it applies to the case of France, in regard to disarmament, just as plainly as to China. .France and Security. There are many other politicians and publicists in Britain beside Lloyd George who make a practise of satirising and ridiculing France’s constant demand for “ security.” But they seem to forget that, three times within a hundred years, France has had to suffer invasion and all its terrible consequences through inability to defend

her frontiers. But France remembers only too well. General Seely, in his “ Fear and Be Slain,” writing of his war experiences in France, tells of the devastation that he saw when farms and towns fell into the hands of the advancing German hosts—“ when terrorism, deliberately employed, filled every woman’s heart with dread and every old Frenchman’s heart with rage” —and he concludes that France’s demand for “ security,” however illogical it may sound to us, is natural and inevitable. Even before the Great War the Germans plainly told France that they had doomed her to destruction. Bernhardi, in 1911, declared that “ France must be so crushed that she shall never cross our path again,” and the countless pamphlets of the PanGerman League constantly pictured Central and Western Europe as divided up and reduced to subjection “ under the Prussian jackboot.” I have just

been looking at Sommerfeld’s tl France’s Downfall,” a book written some time before the war by the German officer who gained an evil fame as “ the Butcher of Termonde.” On the cover of the book appears a Pan-German map of Western Europe, in which France is divided between Germany and Italy—with a little slice left for England as

“ consolation prize.” But, some people tell us, “ that was before the war.” What proof has France that Germany has suffered any “ change of heart ”

yet? Hitler and his followers are using to-day about France the identical language that Bernhardi and Sommerfeld and the Pan-Germans used a generation ago, and the spectacle of China’s despair and the impotence of the League of Nations to-day is certainly not calculated to shake the conviction so strongly held by the French people that disarmament without “ security ” is simply suicide.