The Washington Conference

I

ALTHOUGH the Washington Conference has not yet finished its work it has already furnished an excellent test of the public opinion of the world against war. While there is high expert authority to the effect that the battleship is a fighting implement of waning importance and that in the development of the fine art by which men may destroy each other and devastate the earth, it is likely in a decade to become as obsolete as the battle-axe or flintlock, yet in the general opinion of mankind it is regarded as the most formidable as it is the most expensive of all the agencies of destruction upon the ocean. It is looked upon by the mass of men as the very symbol of war, and the spontaneous response to the proposal of Mr. Hughes to scrap the battleships brought out clearly that the vocal sentiment of mankind is overwhelmingly against war. The mass of men have become weary to the last degree of being taxed and killed to maintain the deification of war, and they are ready to dethrone it, accepting reason in its stead as the arbiter of the world.

The progress of opinion in this matter may be seen by recalling an event three quarters of a century old. It was then that Charles Sumner delivered his memorable oration on the True Grandeur of Nations. It was a noble plea for substituting peaceful methods for war, as a ‘mode of litigation’ for the settlement of disputes between nations. The favorable reaction to it, at that day, was confined chiefly to pious and amiable expressions of opinion by the peace societies, with here and there a militant commendation like that of John A. Andrew. But on the whole the criticism was far more animated and aggressive than the approval. One of the counts in his indictment against war was its great expense. A warship, he declared, cost as much as the total endowment of our most ancient and firmly established university. To-day a dreadnought costs more than the endowment of fifty Harvards of Charles Sumner’s time. And this contrast in cost is no greater than the contrast in opinion. As against the limited and decorous approval of Mr. Sumner’s great speech, the proposal of Mr. Hughes kindled an instant response in every quarter of the globe. That means a very great deal. It means that the time is ripe for putting into practice the ideal which Sumner so powerfully expounded. It points to the clear duty of the statesman.

That duty will not. be performed by going through the sacrament of smashing a given number of ships, whether they are obsolete or not It can plainly be seen that this world-wide opinion will not merely sanction, but that it demands, the setting-up of other international tribunals than those of war. It is of little consequence from the standpoint of preserving the peace whether the agreed-upon number of ships is destroyed or not. The world will still have ships enough with which to fight — more indeed than at any previous time in its history. If there is no war it will not be at all from the lack of weapons. But it is of supreme importance that this opinion shall find suitable expression and be made effective, and that we should not be content with marking down the cost of war and making it a little cheaper, while carefully retaining its deadlier and less expensive weapons. The duty that is enjoined, of responding to this world opinion, is of so vital a character that even if its weight could be dissipated over all the nations it would still lie heavily upon responsible statesmen; but if a single nation alone stands in the path of its performance, the centralization of responsibility would become so great that to falter or to neglect to perform it would become the most colossal crime that a statesman could commit.

II

The presentation by Mr. Hughes of the proposal to reduce naval armaments was superbly made. It had a ringing and aggressive note. He proposed that the United States should join with Great Britain and Japan, and destroy or suspend the building of nearly two million tons of capital ships or more than half of the combined capital-ship tonnage of their existing navies. The plan had been worked out with the most minute exactness. With so momentous a message the Secretary resisted all temptation to self-exploitation or rhetorical display, but he put his case with a simplicity and clarity of phrase that left no room for doubt as to his meaning and that carried conviction. He had an approving audience. All the powers except Japan were very willing to let the battleship go. They all regarded it as a liability rather than an asset; and as to Japan, the attitude of that people, recent in their entrance into Western civilization, was chiefly influenced by their pride in their splendid new toy, called the Mitsu, which seems to them the most imposing industrial product of their country. But even with the readjustment necessary to save the Mitsu, the roll of condemned battleships remains impressive and the peaceful Mr. Hughes may claim to have destroyed more warships in tonnage than all the sea fighters from Themistocles to the German and British admirals in the Jutland fight.

The mortality among submarines, however, was nothing. Indeed the limitation proposed for them would have increased their number and even that was rejected, so that submarines may be built without limit by any power, so far as any action of the Conference is concerned.

Great Britain, which was willing to accept the capital-ship proposal in its entirety, advocated the complete abolition of the submarine and she must be credited with a willingness to stand for a more complete disarmament programme than any other power. There is no other nation to which the submarine constitutes so grave a menace. The bottom of the sea is strewn with the wrecks of her merchantmen and in spite of her mighty dreadnoughts and auxiliary fleets, this venomous weapon brought her to the verge of destruction. Her insular position which has made her so long immune against invasion and which is responsible for her greatness, becomes a source of weakness before any contrivance which can effectively check the movement of the food-supply demanded by her teeming population. Her interest broadly coincided with that of civilization when she favored not merely the extreme proposal for the destruction of battleships but the extinction of the submarine also.

But for a variety of reasons the other powers wished to retain the submarine. A given amount of money expended upon that arm would produce a vastly greater destructive force than could be procured in any other known way. The responsibility for the triumph of the submarine was chiefly laid at the door of France who had just reluctantly agreed to a capital-ship programme which marked her as a fourth-rate naval power. By way of compensation to her pride she insisted on retaining the right to build as many submarines as were allotted to the United States or to Great Britain. But an injustice was done France because the basis of Mr. Hughes’s programme did not fairly apply to her. Indeed he had excepted her when he first put it forward. That programme was based upon the present naval strength of the different powers and not upon their respective need of navies. Mr. Hughes said in effect to England and Japan, ‘If we enter into a race to build navies the present naval strength of each power will be its starting-point. Let us expand or contract proportionately from what we now possess.’ But the United States, Great Britain, and Japan had all strengthened their navies during the war period. France, on the other hand, in waging the common battle, was compelled to concentrate all her strength upon the land. Her soil was the battleground. Because of that fact she was compelled to let her navy fall into decay. It was as much a sacrifice to the common cause as would have been the fleets of England if they had been sunk in combat in the North Sea. Suppose the latter thing had happened. It is not possible to suppose that Mr. Hughes would have coolly said to England, ‘Let us treat our present fleets as fixing our relative strength, and do you limit yourself for the future to a navy one fourth the size of that of the United States and one half that of Japan.’ And yet for her refusal to accept a similar proposition in principle, France was accused of being militaristic and of disturbing the harmony of the Conference. She would have been fully justified in claiming the right to rehabilitate her navy to a normal condition compared with that of the other powers which had been her allies. She had the right to point to the fact that she was the second colonial power in the world, with possessions in every sea and far more extensive than the colonies of the United States and Japan combined. She may decide not to enlarge her navy; but to consent to be shorn of the right to do so if she chose would have been humiliating to her pride.

Having yielded upon the difference over battleships, France insisted upon standing on an equality with the United States and Great Britain in the right to build submarines. All the powers might well have agreed to banish them entirely; but since they did not do that the French Prime Minister cannot be criticized for refusing complacently to concede the practical monopoly of the ocean to the United States, Great Britain, and Japan. M. Briand was accused of being militaristic, but he fell far short of voicing that chauvinistic element in his country which seems incapable of forgiving Germany either for being defeated in the last war or for being victorious in 1870, and, putting the destruction of that country above the rehabilitation of France, ranks patriotism as a virtue inferior to revenge. His leadership on the whole lay in the direction of the restoration of Europe, which is vital to the future of France.

When the Conference declined to abolish submarines, it then determined if not to prohibit their use, to limit it very greatly. Such restrictions were imposed upon its employment against ships of commerce, that upon chancing to meet a modern merchantman upon the sea, a prudently commanded submarine would need to seek safety by flying or by diving beneath the water. It would engage in a battle — if it gave battle at all — under conditions in which its destruction would be practically certain. Unless the submarine should observe all the provisions of international law devised at a time when it did not exist, its captain is to be treated as a pirate even when obeying the commands of his own government and is liable to be tried and hanged in any jurisdiction in which he may be found. One difficulty with this pirate provision is that you must first catch your pirate before you hang him. And since piracy is at the best a dangerous profession, one who is bold enough to follow it in a submarine is not apt to be influenced greatly by the fear of being hanged rather than of being drowned.

Nations when driven into a corner are likely to use all the power within their grasp in order to avoid destruction. They are likely to claim that their enemy was the first to violate the laws of war. We need not go back of the last war to find an instance. The law of blockade had been well established. But the British devised a change in that law suited to their own exigencies and which they believed they had the strength to enforce against belligerents and neutrals alike. They not merely blockaded the German ports but they attempted to blockade the whole sea upon which those ports were located and they blockaded also the ports of neutrals which had a land connection with Germany. The effect of this deviation from the laws of war might have been the starvation of the millions of women and children in Germany along with the men who were capable of bearing arms. Germany made this blockade the pretext for her ruthless employment of the submarine.

The attempt to make war a polite and ladylike affair is an attempt to whiten what in essence is a law less and brutal and savage thing, which is repugnant to man as a reasonable being, and which should be banished from a universe that operates according to the high principles of reason and law. If the use of the submarine and poisongas may be prohibited, the use of other implements of murder may equally well be prohibited, and, instead of making a compromise with war by sanctioning any of its forms, the thing to do is to reform it altogether by making it fall under the common denunciation of mankind. Our fathers would never have destroyed slavery if they had confined their work to palliatives such as would make the slave a well-fed creature, more comfortable and even happy in his bondage. And we shall never succeed in destroying war, or essentially change its character by smoothing out its horrid wrinkles, if that were possible. Palliatives are well enough when we have an evil; but we should not be content with them nor refrain from challenging the right of the evil to exist at all.

Something more radical must be done with regard to war than to make a play for the next election. The problem is real and urgent, and it is because there is a general apprehension of its magnitude that the instinct of selfpreservation is inspiring men to demand that nothing be left undone at this moment. They have learned very much during the last decade and what they have learned strengthens their belief in a famous passage written more than a century ago.

‘When I cast an eye,’ said Martin to Candide, ‘ on this globe or rather, on this little ball, I cannot help thinking that God has abandoned it to some malignant being... I scarcely ever knew a city that did not desire the destruction of a neighboring city, nor a family that did not wish to exterminate some other family. Everywhere the weak execrate the powerful before whom they cringe; and the powerful beat them like sheep whose wool and flesh they sell. A million regimented assassins, from one extremity of Europe to the other, get their bread by disciplined depredation and murder for want of more honest employment.’

III

With regard to the reduction of land armaments very little was accomplished, chiefly because of the French fear of the German peril. Whether that fear was baseless or not, probably it would be exhibited by any other nation that had just been through the long nightmare from which France has suffered. But with more than four million men in the armies of Europe to-day, there would appear to be a rich field for land disarmament. Europe, however, must be given credit for having achieved much disarmament by her own efforts. On the day of the Armistice she had 28,000,000 men under arms. The brood of little wars that were the offspring of the great convulsion have been steadily dying out and the twenty-odd wars have been reduced to one. After the unparalleled conflict with which Europe has been rent, the tumult has subsided and she is at last approaching the period of repose.

IV

One of the things the Conference was summoned to consider was the settlement of Far-Eastern questions, and an important part of its work is seen in the making of treaties — or in attempting to make them — with the avowed purpose of removing the causes of war in that field. It may be said of treaties that they have often caused as well as prevented wars. One fatal attribute of alliances between a limited number of powers, with purpose to maintain themselves over a given portion of the earth, is that they are apt to breed counteralliances which challenge the assertion of power, and a condition which will ripen into war is likely to be produced thereby.

But first as to China, which will spring to one’s mind immediately the Far East is mentioned. China is the most populous and probably the most wealthy empire upon the earth. She was the seat of a high civilization before the foundations of Nineveh were laid and for uncounted centuries her people had enjoyed a degree of peace and contentment and, probably, of happiness unsurpassed by any other great population upon the globe. The antiquity of her social order and national life made the Western nations seem to be the ephemeral creatures of an hour. The opening-up of that vast empire was a process of force. Those people preferred their own peaceful order to the restless energy of the West and to a civilization which flowered out in the submarine. The vital Far-Eastern question which was likely to produce conflict related to China. Indeed there was no other Far-East question of any real consequence if we except questions relating to Russia, whose ministers were not permitted at the Conference. The other powers had taken advantage of China’s military weakness and under one pretext or another had adopted the policy of grab. She had been stripped of her chief seaports. ‘Spheres of influence’ had been established which penetrated into her richest provinces. Monopolies had been extorted for building railroads and exploiting her coal and iron ores. Her post offices, her customs-duties, and, to an important extent, the administration of justice were under the control of foreigners. What had been done portended little less than the complete dismemberment of the country. If China was to be saved, it was imperative that the Conference powers should take radical action.

A declaration of principles was put forth which needed only to be put in force in order to accomplish a just settlement of the real Far-Eastern question. Unhappily, it was one of those noble generalizations which are easily made and as easily disregarded. The sovereignty, independence, and administrative integrity of China were to be respected. In the face of this gorgeous language the powers proceeded forthwith to exercise the first attribute of sovereignty and to establish customs-duties for the empire. With the exception of a port and perhaps the sale of a railroad and a doubtful concession upon the post-office question, China promises to retire from the Conference emptyhanded. The door, however, is to be opened in the interest of the trade of other nations. All are to be admitted upon equal terms and at low rates of duty. The net result of it all promises to be that the powers will have done little for China and much for themselves. As to the restoration of the loot of three fourths of a century, a proposition to that end checked the flow of fine phrases and threw a cold chill over the Conference.

V

The sum of the positive achievement for peace in the Far East is to be seen in the Four-Power Treaty, supplemented by other treaties. Of the FourPower Treaty which was put forward with such confidence as safeguarding the peace of the Pacific and its lovely islands, it may be said that it possesses the merit of brevity, if not of clarity. Excepting the formal parts which might belong to any treaty for any purpose whatsoever, it contains barely two hundred words. And yet within that brief compass there has already developed an important difference of construction which is calling for a redrafting of the treaty. The agreement that the powers shall respect the rights of each other in their insular dominions and possessions in the regions of the Pacific is something that they are already bound to do under the primary principles of international morality. In case of a controversy regarding their rights, — which is not likely unless there is deliberate aggression, — they are to hold a conference to adjust it. In case of a disagreement at such a conference no method is provided for a settlement.

But the most important article provides that, if any of the rights of the parties are threatened by the aggressive action of any other power, the contracting parties shall confer ‘in order to arrive at an understanding as to the most efficient measures to be taken jointly and separately to meet the exigencies of the particular situation.’ Obviously in such a conference this country would be represented by an agent of the Executive. Whether an understanding may be arrived at by a majority of the representatives of the Four Powers is not clear; but let it be supposed that the ‘understanding’ must be reached by unanimous action, and that this unanimous understanding should be that the powers should jointly employ force. Would such an understanding impose no moral obligation upon the contracting parties? To treat an understanding thus arrived at as a mere brutum fulmen, binding neither in law or morals, would involve an extraordinary method of construing a solemn treaty between sovereign states. To assert that ‘no military or naval sanction lurks anywhere in the background’ would seem hardly consistent with the good faith that should animate nations.

But if it were said that our representative would need first to consent to the employment of force by us, and that we could not be brought into war without our consent, precisely the same thing is true of the Council of the League of Nations, the decision of which must be unanimous. The proponents of the interesting view that our country would have incurred no moral obligation to use force are brought face to face with some of those lofty sentiments about national honor with which they themselves elevated t he discussion upon the League of Nations. The treaty creates a defensive and an entangling alliance. It is the very sort of alliance against which Washington warned us. What reason is there why we should, for the first, time in history, depart from his solemn injunction? What have we or the world to gain? Does it in the slightest degree remove any cloud upon our title to the Sandwich Islands or the Philippines, or increase our ability to defend them? Indeed one of the other treaties in the group of treaties framed by the Conference promises to prohibit us from constructing naval bases at Guam or on the Philippines.

A distinguished British authority upon sea power declares that without those naval bases we could defend the Philippines only by airplanes or submarines.¹ With those islands four thousand miles distant from our nearest naval base it would be as mad for us to send our battleships there, as it was for Russia to send her ships halfway round the world to get them sunk in Japanese waters. Is our surrender of the right and duty properly to protect the people of the Archipelago, and our assent to Japan’s receiving the suzerainty of all the former German islands north of the equator, the price we are paying for the Four-Power Treaty? When before did ever a nation pay a great price that she might be burdened with a heavy liability? Is it the ideal way in which to preserve the peace of the Pacific for us to throw away the defenses necessary to protect our Far-Eastern possessions in case war should break? Is that not rather the way to cause than to prevent war? These treaties as foreshadowed crown Japan as the Empress of the Orient. With her naval bases so near the China coast, and her proximity to the open door, she is likely in any crisis to have her own way. The power of the West to safeguard China against the possible aggressions of Japan will be much reduced by the abandonment of our right to fortify Manila and Guam. That nation is to be congratulated upon the triumph of her diplomacy won single-handed and in open competition with the Western nations.

VI

Even if the Pacific treaties were to our advantage and if they did no violence to our diplomatic traditions, we are paying no regard to the most powerful nation that extends along the Eastern Coast of the Pacific. Russia is ignored. So great a people is bound to play an important part in the future of the world, even though, at the moment, they have no Government that is recognized to speak for them. They number 150,000,000 and occupy a seventh of the earth’s surface. To ignore them would create a great and dangerous vacuum in the affairs of men. But not to safeguard the rights of the Russian nation, in the time of its temporary disability would be not only an unwise policy but perfidious politics as well on the part of its former allies. Russia stands mute on account of her superhuman efforts in the war. Had it not been for her sacrifices, international conferences to-day would probably be held in Berlin instead of in Washington. She suffered a greater loss of life than any other nation. It is not too much to say that, had it not been for her tremendous efforts upon the Eastern front, the German tide would have engulfed Paris and have swept onward across France to the ocean. The war would have been lost. If her former allies have given any thought to her just claims, there is not the slightest evidence of it in this series of treaties. They are parceling out the small fruits of victory in the Pacific, and Japan, which contributed a few yen to the war, is thriftily husbanding them all. Japanese troops are still in Siberia after those of the other powers have retired, according to the understanding at the time of occupation. The island of Sakhalin is half owned by Russia and half by Japan. The Japanese have extended their control over the whole island. They have absorbed the fishing industry. They have refused the Russian ships a landing at the Russian ports and to all intents and purposes have made the entire island Japanese.

It is on all accounts unfortunate that Russia with her great interests in the Far East could not have received de facto recognition and have been invited to Washington as she has been to Geneva. The Russian interests in the Pacific will sooner or later be brought forward, and before entering into any confederation with Japan it should be withdrawn from the realm of inference and explicitly stated that nothing in the treaties shall operate in derogation of any interests of Russia. Our debt to that nation for her steady friendship is very great and it can scarcely be enhanced, even by the obligation of fair play which rests heavily upon all her allies in the late war.

The Western nations have no resources to abandon whether it be to impair their power to defend their possessions in the seas of the Orient or to alienate each other. The ‘Yellow’ Peril’ may turn out to be not wholly rhetorical. China and Japan are certainly no more estranged than were France and England at Waterloo, and in obedience to their racial and other ties they may come together again even as France and England came together. When well trained the Chinese make excellent soldiers, and after a generation or two, China may take on the habiliments of our Western civilization. With Western arms, with welldisciplined soldiery,and with leadership one may not safely put limits upon what the vast populations of China and Japan might accomplish under the spur of a race imperialism. In that awakening we cannot predict that either Europe or America would be safe. With absolute justice to the two great oriental nations, we should retain a prudent regard for our own preservation and not be forgetful of the future.

VII

There is one thing concerning the composition of the Conference which I think should be noted. I have more than once directed attention to the not uncommon practice, which I believe to be objectionable, of appointing Senators to negotiate treaties or to perform some other executive act upon which they are afterwards to take independent action by virtue of their office as Senators. Two of the American delegates are Senators. Those members do not represent the Senate or its ‘advice and consent’ in any constitutional sense. The Senate did not choose them and did not even confirm their appointments. They were chosen by the President alone and act officially as his agents and under his instructions. The Constitution forbids a man to hold two offices. The principle of that prohibition is violated, for here are gentlemen who act as agents of the Executive in negotiating a treaty upon which they afterwards act under their constitutional obligations as Senators. One might as well expect independent action from a judge upon a case which he had prepared and argued as counsel. In such a case the judge would decline to sit, and correct principles of government would require that Senators, who had elected to serve as the agents of the President in negotiating a trealy, should decline to pass upon their own work but should leave its ratification to the untrammeled judgment of their colleagues. But even if the practice were not indelicate and in violation of sound constitutional principles, it would be reprehensible for another reason. It seems to imply that the citizenship of this country is poor and meagre in the ability to render public service when its vast population has just demonstrated its tremendous resources in every field of service. What need is there for confining the choice of delegates within such narrow range?

Mr. Hughes was never in the Senate but, as Secretary, was of necessity appointed a delegate. The other three delegates all were or had been members of the Senate. Where there was a practical freedom of choice all were taken from the senatorial caste. For good measure the chairman of the committee of advisers was also chosen from the same charmed circle. We are thus permitted to look upon a remarkable phenomenon in the development of democratic government when we see such a concentration of the talent of our hundred millions of people into a minute group operating as a ruling class. A vast continental republic will not long submit to be governed by a narrow ring. It must be said that the Senate has not struck the zenith in its modern days. The new property qualification for membership, which has been gradually asserting itself, has neither improved its quality nor its standing with the people.

Whether any of the treaties regarding the Pacific should be ratified presents a question of grave doubt. There will need to be careful scrutiny of their ultimate form. But the limitation of ships and the naval holiday must stand as positive achievements of statesmanship. They will reduce naval budgets and if, so far as peace is concerned, they constitute only an exalted gesture, yet it is a gesture that has evoked the plaudits of the world. As I said at the outset, the widespread response may be regarded as marking a long step forward. It shows that the public opinion of mankind is against war, and without equivocation or political manœuvring it is the duty of the nations to form a solid phalanx against it. Fifty nations have already banded together. Undoubtedly those provisions in their covenant which were obnoxious to us would be obliterated. The essential thing is to present a united front against war. This country is the only obstacle to world union. If we shall take our place by the side of Europe and Asia and Africa, then the prophecy of the Latin poet may be at last fulfilled; the rough ages will become gentle and the gates of war be closed.

The conference habit is a good one to cultivate. It will promote understanding and relieve the strain upon a single world union. But America’s place is beside the other nations joining to outlaw war and to put a restraining hand upon that power which would resort to methods of violence and break the peace of the world.