Stresses Importance of Questions of the Pacific

Mr. Croly has been editor of the New Republic since 1914.

There exists in the mind of the public a great deal of confusion about the official objects which the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armament is called to accomplish and about the proper measure of its success or failure. This confusion is not entirely the public's fault. It is born of an underlying infirmity of purpose in the plans of the administration. The President during the campaign incurred a clear obligation to move in the direction of peace through international agreement, and for that purpose he was bound to summon a conference of the Allied and Associated Powers. But if his conference was to accomplish an immediate practical result, it must avoid the ugly and for the present irreconcilable dissensions which Europe had inherited from the war and for which the Republican leaders did not wish the American government to assume responsibility. A proposed international agreement, fathered by a Republican administration, must deal with a region of international disorder and conflict in which the American nation was directly and traditionally interested, yet whose pacification would involve some substantial relief from the expense of armament and the distraction of war.

A Conference called to discuss a possible limitation of naval armament and a possible agreement among the Pacific Powers with respect to the future of China seemed nicely calculatel to meet these exacting requirements. The adviser of President Harding who proposed and carried the idea possessed the vision of a statesman. He was reviving the best article in the traditional American diplomatic creed. It was the article which John Hay first defined when he asked the European Powers to accept the Open Door as the foundation of their relations with China, the article which Philander Knox amplified when he proposed the neutralization of the Manchurian Railways, and the article which Woodrow Wilson repudiated when he consented to the cession of Shantung to Japan. An international agreement which initiated a promising settlement of the problem of China would accomplish as much for the future peace of the world as would a healing of the quarrel between France and Germany, and it would remove one of the most formidable obstacles to the limitation of naval armaments. For it is the aggressive policy of Japan in China, operating under the cover of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance which lies behind and partly explains the existing competition in naval armaments.

Unfortunately, however, for the success of the idea the American public is not sufficiently educated in foreign politics to understand the peculiar importance of curing the existing disorder in the Far East and the effect of such a cure upon the peace of the world and the limitation of naval armaments. That part of the American people which is most interested in peace does not distinguish between land and naval armaments and the difference of political objects which provoke nations to undertake one rather than the other. It does not see that armies raised a much more unmanageable group of questions, particularly from the point of view of the American government, than navies. It has interpreted the Conference as a kind of substitute for a League of Nations and an agency of general pacification. These people are expecting, from the Conference more than it is intended to achieve and more than it is capable of achieving. But their expectations are not under the circumstances wholly unreasonable. The American government has invited misinterpretation. In planning the Conference it introduced into the agenda general questions which raised the subject of land disarmament and issued invitations to Powers which are only secondarily in- terested in the future of China and in naval disarmament. Two of the former Allied and Associated Powers, France and Italy, are occupied almost exclusively with European disorder and will subordinate their policy during the Conference to their national interests in Europe. Two of the other three, the United States and Japan, will approach the problems of power and policy in the Pacific as a matter which demands special consideration on its own merits. Great Britain occupies an intermediate position between the two groups and her attitude will have much to do with the success or failure of the gathering.

The presence in the Conference of two or possibly three Powers who will subordinate their treatment of the problems of the Pacific to European interests gravely endangers its success in accomplishing the object of its authors. The French delegation in particular will insist on discusing at length the limitation of land armaments in relation to the existing causes of unrest and insecurity in Europe. Its policy with respect to political and military problems of the Pacific may serve only as stock-in-trade which it can barter in exchange for advantages nearer at home. But if European perplexities dominate the deliberations of the Conference, it will come to a stop in front of the embittered conflicts of national interest which defeated Mr. Wilson in Paris and with which the statesmanship of the present administration is not prepared to deal. The Conference will have small chance of success unless the American delegation can manage not only to fasten the attention of the gathering on the Pacific and on naval disarmament but also somehow to have the problems of the Pacific disinterestedly considered on their own merits.

Hard to Test Success of Conference

Let us suppose the American government by virtue of diplomatic co-operation with Great Britain clears this initial obstacle, formidable as it is, and fastens the attention of the Conference on a fairly objective consideration of the causes of international disorder and conflict in the Pacific in relation to the competition in naval armaments. What would in that event constitute a fair yard-stick of its success? Should we test it by the volume of naval disarmament upon which Japan, Great Britain and the United States would agree? Or should we test it by the extent to which it permanently adjusts existing conflicts of national policy in China and creates a concert of Pacific Powers based on the loyal acceptance by all of them of certain common principles and methods in their treatment of China?

In my opinion the second will constitute a sounder yard-stick of success than the first. The Conference will and should accomplish something under both heads. It will almost certainly arrange for at least a temporary reduction in naval expenditures by Japan, Great Britain, the United States. A failure in this respect might well be fatal to President Harding, It would disappoint the public and damage the prestige of the administration to such an extent that the American delegation will avoid it at any cost. The Conference is also likely to draw up a form of words about the policy of foreign nations towards China, which Japan, Great Britain and the United States will all accept. But this form of words will need cross-examination. It will need searching for convenient ambiguities and dangerous jokers. The diplomatic history of the Far East is a jungle of ambiguous and insincere phrases. The questions must be asked: What does the new formula really mean? Does it provide for the operative administration of its decrees? Will the Conference recognize by its legislation, that a mere limitation of naval armaments without an effective working agreement about the future of China may help Japan to exploit China rather than the United States to protect China against exploitation?

The limitation of armaments is important, but it is not decisive as an agency of peace. National armament is the creature of national policy. If a nation cherishes policies which impair the freedom and prevent the development of other nations, it is bound to arm in self-protection against the resentment and the fear of other nations. It may agree temporarily to limit its armament, provided those who suffer from its aggression or are opposed to its pretensions agree to a similar limitation. But in that event disarmament is an advantage to the aggressor. It frees his hand. The helplessness of China has provided her aggressors with their opportunity. In the end she must manage to protect herself, but in the meantime those who understand the disastrous consequences of leaving her open to exploitation must provide for her protection. They cannot provide her with protection unless they are armed. But neither can they provide sufficiently for her protection merely by arming. Chinese independence like Korean independence might be as much endangered by a successful protector as by a successful exploiter. A nation which wishes honestly to protect another nation against exploitation will do what the American government is trying to do. It will use its armaments as a diplomatic tool with which to induce other nations to place the possible victim under effective international guaranties--guaranties which will bind America no less than Japan.

But if a peace-loving statesman fails to obtain the guarantee, he will not delude himself with the idea that by disarming he has protected China, diminished the occasion for future war or promoted the security of the world. The Administration has done well to associate the proposal to limit naval armaments with the proposal to do away with one of the chief reasons for their existence. It would not do well to insist on the limitation without having succeeded in securing its regional international agreement. The public should test its work by its success in eradicating the causes of international fear, hostility and disorder in the Pacific. Its business is to provide for the future protection of China by an agreement among the Pacific Powers which will have as its chief purpose the building up of a strong and self-supporting China. If it can accomplish this result, a substantial part of the existing naval armament would become unnecessary. It would then be easy to limit navies and far harder in the future to increase them. If it cannot accomplish this result any limitation of armament achieved by the coming Conference would be precarious. In a disorderly country where there is no security of person and property, men will carry guns. The western Pacific would remain as essentially disorderly as it has been during the past twenty-five years. Its inhabitants would need armaments for their own protection. The present agitation in favor of disarmament which is prompted as much by poverty as by any devotion to justice and peace would be superseded and its results neutralized by another successful campaign for military and naval preparedness