DODGING THE ISSUE

Lord Lee of Fareham, formerly a delegate to the Washington arms conference, seems to show political colorblindness in his recent suggestion that President Coolidge call a conference with the specific purpose of abolishing the submarine from naval warfare. This incident lends definiteness to the movement current in England against the submarine, caused immediately by a series of submarine disasters in the British, American, and Japanese navies, and fundamentally by the unpleasant experience the British nation had with submarines during the war. Such intimate contact with the German U-boats has evidently warped English public opinion into disregarding other menaces which make the worst type of submarine warfare seem like child's play.

Theoretically, the world would be better off without the menace of undersea combat added to the horrors of war on the surface and in the air. Although recent evidence apparently shows that the submarine can do little in direct combat with enemy battle units, it is well suited to destroying enemy commerce and striking fear into noncombatants. Even though abolishing submarines might protect these noncombatants, it is scarcely worth wasting breath on such a project at the present time. In the event of any great war in the future, the noncombatant population will be in far greater danger from aerial and chemical threats, if one is to believe the prophecies of scientists and military experts. And the whole project of calling a conference for the purpose of abolishing the submarine only, while the sinews of chemical warfare are being perfected toward annihilating hostile populations, has all the air of fiddling peacefully while Rome burns. Another arms conference which neglects to deal with these greater problems, would have neither popular support nor ethical justification.