Reduction of Armaments and a Treaty of Guarantee with Regional Agreements LORD ROBERT CECIL'S Proposals and Speech in the Third Assembly of the League of Nations By CHARLES H. LEVERMORE Secretary of the League of Nations Union and of the New York Peace Society ,-p Published by the NEW YORK PEACE SOCIETY 70 Fifth Avenue 1922 I. The Temporary Mixed Commis$i6n bri Reduction of Armament The Council of the League of Nations voted on February 25, 1921, to create a Temporary Mixed Commission on Reduction of Armaments. The name was chosen to distinguish it from the Permanent Advisory Armaments Commission which functions under Articles I, VIII, and IX of the Covenant. The latter Commission represents the land, water and air services of Governments. The Temporary Mixed Commission is constituted to represent society at large, comprising representative states- men and diplomatists, laborers and employers of labor, economists and financiers, and military men of the land, sea and air services, twenty-nine in all. The Commission first met at Paris, July 16-19, 1921. The Second Assembly received its report, and charted its future work in resolutions adopted on October 1, 1921.* In order to know the outcome of the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armaments, the Commission delayed its third session until February 20, 1922. A British delegate, Rear- Admiral Segrave, proposed that the principle of reduction in naval armament, adopted at Washington, be extended to States that are mem- bers of the League. Another British delegate, Lord Esher, presented an elaborate draft plan for the reduction of land armaments. The Commission voted that, with the approval of the Council, each Government should be asked to furnish a statement concerning the re- quirements of its national security, its international obligations, needs arising from its geographical situation and any special circumstances. Each Government should also be asked to tell what police and military forces it required for the preservation of domestic order, and what was the expense of that. The Commission, in conjunction with the Council, also authorized the preparation of complete statistical reports upon the armaments of various countries, and began with Italy and Belgium. Upon the question about the private manufacture of arms and traffic therein the Commission voted that control of such production and traffic could best be secured by ratification of the Arms Traffic Convention of St. Germain, signed at Paris September 10, 1919. On October 1, 1922, eleven States, signatory to that Convention, had ratified it, but most of them made their ratifications conditional upon similar action by all the Great Powers. It was felt that the Convention was futile unless the United States ratified it. At that time the United States Government had not replied to any of the letters from the Secretariat of the League about this subject. See full report in Levermore's Second Year Book of the League of Nations, pp. 175-180. 784943 ' ill : th"e v winter and spring of 1922, in deference to the vote of the Second Assembly, repeating the action of the First Assembly, the Governments were receiving letters from the Secretariat, approved by the Council, and asking that member- States should agree to keep appropriations for military, naval and air forces during the next two years within the limits of the expenditures for the current year. The Temporary Mixed Commission held another session (its fourth in total number) at Paris, July 3-7. The replies to the above-mentioned inquiry had not been very numerous or encouraging. The Segrave pro- posal was referred to the naval section of the Permanent Armaments Commission. The Esher plan was overshadowed in the discussion by proposals brought forward by Lord Robert Cecil for a treaty of mutual guarantee against aggression, coupled with military, naval, and aerial disarmament. The proposed treaty, which amounted to an amendment of the Covenant especially with respect to Articles X and XVI, stipulated that the guarantee should be enforced in Europe by European forces only; in Asia by Asiatic States ; in America by American States ; and in Africa by African States. The guarantee will not be invoked for any State which has not reduced its land, sea, and air forces in accordance with the treaty. The Commission approved Lord Robert's proposals as the basis of a plan for disarmament, and embodied it in the Commission's report to the Third Assembly. It is noteworthy that, during this July session of the Commission, the Chilean delegate announced that, relying on the information gathered by the Commission and on the results of the Washington Conference, his country would ask for the inclusion of the whole question of world dis- armament in the agenda of the Fifth Pan-American Congress at Santiago in March, 1923. Before the Third Assembly met, the Secretariat of the League re- ceived a letter from the Secretary of State at Washington, dated July 28, 1922, and answering the letter of the Secretary-General of November 21, 1921, about the Convention of St. Germain. The Secretary said : "While the Government of the United States is in cordial sympathy with efforts to restrict traffic in arms and muni- tions of war, it finds itself unable to approve the provisions of the Con- vention and to give any assurance of its ratification." The Secretary offers no reason for the inability, but an examination of the text of the Convention* shows a reason in the relation of the life and operation of the agreement to the Council and Secretariat of the League of Nations. * The text of the Convention can be conveniently consulted in Pamphlet No. 164 of the publications of the American Association for International Conciliation (July, 1921). II. Reduction of Armaments as Considered in Com- mittee of the Third Assembly of the League of Nations When the Third Assembly met, the subject of Reduction of Arma- ments was assigned to Committee No. 3. That Committee, under the chairmanship of a Cuban delegate, began its work on Friday, September 8, with the report of the Temporary Mixed Commission, including Lord Robert Cecil's proposals. Lord Robert presented the report. He said that the Commission had set aside Lord Esher's scheme. It was clear that forces must be limited in material as well as in personnel. A numerical standard for personnel would be necessary, and a budgetary standard for material. He thought that colonial forces must be considered apart from the others. The answers by Governments to the inquiry into armaments showed that Gov- ernments had no confidence in their immunity from sudden attack. If fear of aggression were removed, reduction of armaments would follow naturally. At present the considerable reductions were chiefly produced by economic pressure. He explained his plan for a treaty of mutual guarantee, and read these resolutions (substantially identical with those presented to the Temporary Mixed Commission) as the basis of such a treaty: 1. No scheme for the reduction of armaments can ever be really successful unless it is general. 2. In the present state of the world, the majority of Governments would be unable to accept the responsibility for a serious reduction of armaments unless they received in exchange a satisfactory guarantee of the safety of their countries. 3. Such a guarantee can be found in a general defensive agree- ment between all the countries concerned, binding them to provide im- mediate and effective assistance in accordance with a pre-arranged plan in the event of one of them being attacked, provided that the obli- gation to render assistance to a country attacked shall be limited in principle to those countries situated in the same part of the globe. In cases, however, where, for historical, geographical, or other reasons, a country is in special danger of attack, detailed arrangements should be made for its defence in accordance with the above-mentioned plan. 4. It is understood that the whole of the above resolutions are con- ditional on a reduction of armaments being carried out on lines laic* down beforehand, and on the provision of effective machinery to ensure the realization and the maintenance of such a reduction. The Third Committee of the Assembly held its ninth and final meet- ing on September 23. During these nine sessions (Sept. 8-23) the Com- mittee condensed from its discussion and from the reports presented to it the sixteen resolutions which follow. These resolutions with an ac- companying report, were first laid before the seventeenth plenary session of the Assembly, September 26, by Lord Robert Cecil. They were dis- cussed through the morning and afternoon sessions of that day, and were adopted by the Assembly in its nineteenth plenary session, the next morn- ing, September 27. The text of the resolutions adopted by the Assembly was as follows : I (a). The Assembly considers it is desirable that the Tempo- rary Mixed Commission should be asked to continue for another year the work which it has begun and that its report be submitted at an early date previous to that of the next Assembly. The Assembly further requests the Council to invite the Members of the League to lend their assistance and advice with regard to proposals for reduction of land armaments and a Treaty of Mutual Guarantee. (b.) The Assembly desires to express its sense of the great value of the collaboration that has existed between the Temporary Mixed Commission and the Permanent Advisory Commission, and trusts that it will continue and, if possible, increase. The Assembly is of opinion that the great technical competence of the Permanent Advisory Com- mission cannot but be of essential service in the study, from the tech- nical military point of view, of the questions with which the Tem- porary Mixed Commission deals. Approved in Committee, September 23. II. The Assembly recommends that, as a preliminary step, the European States existing before the war in 1914, under their present description, whose juridical status has not been altered by the war, and which are not, at the moment, engaged in military operations which justify their armaments, be invited to reduce the total of their military, naval and air expenditure to the figures for 1913, calculated on the basis of pre-war prices according to the method employed by the Tem- porary Mixed Commission. Proposed by M. de Jouvenel (France). Approved by the Committee, September 14. The information gathered by the Temporary Mixed Commission shows that estimated defense expenditures of Governments for 1922-23 is less than that for the two previous years. It must be noted, however, that demobilization and decrease in cost of raw mate- ials have caused some decrease in war charges. III. The Assembly expresses its satisfaction at the remarkable work accomplished in collecting and drawing up statistical data in an entirely new and peculiarly difficult field. Taking into account the work accomplished, and reserving the question of the scope it might be necessary to give to a statistical enquiry at a later date, the Assembly desires to determine for the coming year the programme which appears to it at the same time both immediately useful and practicable. It therefore proposes that this programme should be limited to the two following points : (1) Peace-time armaments; (2) Expenditure on armaments. The Assembly considers it desirable that the Council should re- quest the Permanent Advisory Commission to collaborate with the Temporary Mixed Commission in that part of the work which deals with technical military, naval and air questions. The work of a sub-committee, headed by Count Tosti de Valminuta (Italy), and approved in Committee, September 21. IV. The Assembly, having considered the report of the Tempo- rary Mixed Commission, is of opinion that the only step which could usefully be taken in connection with surplus stocks of arms and ammu- nition is the control of the international traffic in arms. Moved by Lord Robert Cecil and approved in Committee, Septem- ber 19. V. The Assembly, having noted the proposal of the Temporary Mixed Commission for an international agreement for the control of the manufacture of arms by private companies, urges on the Council to consider the advisability of summoning at an appropriate moment, a conference of the Members of the League to embody this agreement in the form of a convention. The Assembly is further of the opinion that States not Members of the League should be invited to participate in this conference and to co-operate in the policy on which it may agree. Lord Robert Cecil's report. Approved in Committee, September 16. VI. The Assembly : (a) Considers it highly desirable that the Government of the United States should express the objections which it has to formulate to the provisions of the Convention of St. Germain, as well as any proposals which it may care to make as to the way in which these objections can be overcome ; (b) Is of the opinion that the Temporary Mixed Commission should be instructed to prepare a scheme for the control of the interna- tional traffic in arms, to be considered by the Conference which is to deal with the private manufacture of arms ; (c) Requests the Council to take such steps as it thinks advisable to carry out the purpose above indicated. Lord Robert Cecil's report. Approved, September 16. VTI (a) The Assembly, having considered the report of the Tem- porary Mixed Commission on the subject of the development of chem- ical warfare, approves its action in establishing a special Sub-Commit- tee to report on the probable effects of chemical discoveries in future wars, and requests the Council and the Temporary Mixed Commission to take every possible measure to secure the fullest publicity for the report of this Sub-Committee. (b) The Assembly requests the Council to recommend the Mem- bers of the League and other nations to adhere to the Treaty of Wash- ington (February* 6th, 1922) concerning the use of asphyxiating gas and submarines in war, and other similar matters. Section b of No. VII was originally proposed by Sir Mark Sheldon (Australia) and, with slight amendment offered by Mr. Urrutia (Colom- bia), was approved in Committee, September 23. M. Urrutia had orig- inally proposed a new treaty between League members, extending to themselves the agreements of the Washington Conference on gas, sub- marines and capture of merchant vessels, but he withdrew his proposal in favor of Sir Mark Sheldon's. VIII. The Assembly, having considered the answers from the Governments of twenty-six Members of the League to the enquiry issued to them by the Council as to the requirements of their national security, desires to state that it attaches the utmost importance to these replies as affording a basis for the further deliberations of the Tem- porary Mixed Commission, and recommends to the Council that it should once again urge the Members of the League which have not yet sent in their replies to do so without delay. Approved in Committee, September 14. .IX. The Assembly approves the recommendation of the Tempo- rary Mixed Commission that the Council should consider whether the time has not come to discuss the application of the paragraph of Article 8 of the Covenant relating to the exchange of military information be- tween States Members of the League. Approved in Committee, September 14. X. The Assembly expresses its satisfaction at the work accom- plished at Washington in connection with the reduction of naval arma- ments. Approved in Committee, September 21. XI (a) The Assembly welcomes with interest the Chilean Gov- ernment's initiative in submitting the question of disarmament to the Pan-American Conference which is to meet at Santiago in March, 1923. The Assembly expresses the hope that the Conference may arrive at practical solutions capable of being fitted into the more general scheme of disarmament which is being considered by the League of Nations. Approved in Committee, September 21. (b) The Assembly recommends to the Council that the expert services of the League of Nations should eventually be authorized to co-operate in the work of the Pan-American Conference of Santiago. Section b was added to this resolution on motion of M. de Palacios (Spain), by vote of the Assembly itself, on September 27. XII. The Assembly recommends: (a) That an International Conference should be summoned by the Council as soon as possible, to which all States, whether Members of the League or not, should be invited, with a view to considering the extension to all non-signatory States of the principles of the Wash- 8 ington Treaty for the limitation of naval armaments, it being under- stood that any special cases, including those of the new States, shall be given due consideration at the Conference ; (b) That the report of the Temporary Mixed Commission, to- gether with the report and the draft Convention prepared by the Perma- nent Advisory Commission, as well as the text of the Washington Treaty, should be forwarded immediately to various Governments for consideration. This was originally Lord Robert Cecil's resolution definitely recom- mending that the principles of the Washington Naval Treaty should be extended to all States. Brazil and Poland objected to that, and the present form of the first paragraph is due to Mr. H. A. L. Fisher (Great Britain). Approved in Committee, September 16. Brazil abstained from voting, and her delegate, M. de Oliveira, said that his Government did not approve of the Washington agreement. On the 27th, when the Assembly adopted the whole report, M. de Oliveira said that his Gov- ernment was now ready to accept in principle the proposed Conference, with the understanding that its conclusions would not depart from the letter and spirit of Article VIII of the Covenant. XIII. The Assembly, having examined the report of the Tem- porary Mixed Commission on the general principles of land and air disarmament, instructs the Commission to continue its investigations on the basis of these principles, with a view to preparing for the con- sideration of the next Assembly a definite scheme for the general reduc- tion of land and air armaments. Lord Robert Cecil's resolution, the first one approved in Committee, September 14. XIV. (a). The Assembly, having considered the report of the Temporary Mixed Commission on the question of a general Treaty of Mutual Guarantee, being of opinion that this report can in no way affect the complete validity of all the Treaties of Peace or other agreements which are known to exist between States ; and, considering that, this report contains valuable suggestions as to the methods by which a Treaty of Mutual Guarantee could be made effective, is of the opinion that : 1. No scheme for the reduction of armaments, within the mean- ing of Article 8 of the Covenant, can be fully successful unless it is general. 2. In the present state of the world many Governments would be unable to accept the responsibility for a serious reduction of arma- ments unless they received in exchange a satisfactory guarantee of the safety of their country. 3. Such a guarantee can be found in a defensive agreement which should be open to all countries, binding them to provide imme- diate and effective assistance in accordance with a pre-arranged plan in the event of one of them being attacked, provided that the obliga- tion to render assistance to a country attacked shall be limited in principle to those countries situated in the same part of the globe. In cases, however, where, for historical, geographical, or other rea- sons, a country is in special danger of attack, detailed arrange- ments should be made for its defence in accordance with the above- mentioned plan. 4. As a general reduction of armaments is the object of the three preceding statements, and the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee the means of achieving that object, previous consent to this reduction is therefore the first condition for the Treaty. This reduction could be carried out either by means of a gen- eral Treaty, which is the most desirable plan, or by means of par- tial treaties designed to be extended and open to all countries. In the former case, the Treaty will carry with it a general reduc- tion of armaments. In the latter case, the reduction should be pro- portionate to the guarantees afforded by the Treaty. The Council of the League, after having taken the advice of the Temporary Mixed Commission, which will examine how each of these two systems could be carried out, should further formulate and submit to the Governments, for their consideration and sovereign decision, the plan of the machinery, both political and military, nec- essary to bring them clearly into effect. (b) The Assembly requests the Council to submit to the various Governments the above proposals for their observation and requests the Temporary Mixed Commission to continue its investigations, and, in order to give precision to the above statements, to prepare a draft Treaty embodying the principles contained therein. The discussion over this resolution was prolonged. Lord Robert Cecil held that a reduction of armaments should precede a treaty of guar- antee. M. de Jouvenel was sure that a treaty of guarantee must precede any reduction. The text, as it stands, represents the work of these two men and of Count Tosti de Valminuta (Italy), and Mr. H. A. L. Fisher. Approved in Committee, September 19. The Temporary Mixed Commission, in its report, pointed out that such a treaty of guarantee must show how: First, when an outbreak of war has occurred, to determine, with the briefest possible delay, which State is the aggressor. Second, to devise the means by which mutual military aid can be brought without delay, which might be fatal to the State attacked. The Commission proposed that the Council of the League should decide, if necessary, by a three-quarters majority, which State is the aggressor, and should be obliged to do so within four days. As a test, the Commission suggested that that State is the aggressor which has deliberately violated the territory of another, and that the Council might send an expert Commission to the spot to determine the facts. The Third Committee of the Assembly approved these sugges- tions. It agreed that such a Treaty of Mutual Guarantee would be in- effective unless ratified by a great number of States, including "nearly 10 all, if not all, the greater military powers." A plan for such a treaty except on these conditions, "might result in a re-creation of the pre-war system of group alliances." The Third Committee agreed that a Treaty of Guarantee and Reduction of Armaments are two essential parts of one policy, and that the Commission should be asked to find out how the two measures can come into force together. The important regional feature of Lord Robert's original draft-treaty is alluded to only in paragraph 3 of No. XIV. Regional responsibility would inevitably mean a re-grouping of States according to the terri- torial boundaries within which they had given guarantees of mutual security. The probable result would be, roughly speaking, a group or League for each continent of the Old World, and the recognition of the Pan-American Union as the guaranteeing group for both the Americas, if that body would consent to classify itself with the similar international organizations. The Pan-American Union is undeniably the oldest exist- ing League of Nations, having been created under the auspices of the United States as far back as 1891. Such a plan of continental groups would appear to eliminate all objections to the League principle which . were derived from the fear that the United States might be morally obligated to interfere in the quarrels of Europe, Asia and Africa. It would materially change Article X of the Covenant or render it un- necessary. It would result in the amendment of Article XVI, and in the considerable expansion of Article XXI ("regional understandings like the Monroe Doctrine"). It would definitely establish a principle of the Monroe Doctrine as the basis of each regional League. XV. The Assembly of the League of Nations, Whilst declaring that the reduction of armaments contemplated by Article 8 of the Covenant cannot achieve its full effect for world- peace unless it be general : Desires to emphasize the importance of regional agreements for the purpose of reducing armaments agreements which, if necessary, might even go beyond the measures decided upon in respect of general reduction ; And requests the Council to ask the Temporary Mixed Commission to take into consideration during its subsequent work, the possibility of recommending the conclusion of similar agreements to States which might be concerned. This resolution was proposed in Committee by Dr. Christian Lange (Norway), immediately after the approval of No. XIV. It is an ex- tension of the idea of regional agreements, doubtless with the Scandi- navian countries in view. Approved in Committee, September 19. XVI. The Assembly, Considering that moral disarmament is an essential preliminary condition of material disarmament, and that this moral disarmament can only be achieved in an atmosphere of mutual confidence and security ; Declares : That such confidence cannot be attained so long as the world con- tinues to suffer from disorganization of the exchanges, economic chaos 11 and unemployment, and that the only method of remedying these evils is to put an end to the uncertainty which prevails regarding the means for the restoration of the devastated regions and the settlement of the inter- Allied debts; Expresses the hope that, in so far as these questions can be regu- lated by the unaided efforts of the European nations, the Governments signatories of the international treaties and agreements which deal with these questions, and within the framework of which they must be envisaged, will achieve as soon as possible a general settlement of the problem of reparations and inter-Allied debts. It further recommends : That the Council shall devote constant attention to every effort made in this direction by the Governments concerned, it being under- stood that it can only usefully assist in the solution of these problems if requested to do so by the Governments in question. Resolution No. XVI was proposed by M. de Jouvenel. Herein for the first time the French Government permitted itself to suggest the sub- mission of the reparations problem to a new conference, and in that connection to link together reparations, allied debts, and reduction of armaments. Approved in Committee, September 21. Of the numerous speeches made in Committee in debate over No. XVI, two are especially significant, that of M. de Jouvenel in offering the resolution, and that of Mr. Fisher in comment upon it. They are summarized in the daily Journal of the Assembly as follows: M. de Jouvenel was happy to note that Lord Robert Cecil had asked the Committee to contemplate conditions immediately essential to peace. It was of the highest importance for the League of Nations that, after having found a diplomatic and military formula for disarmament, that is to say for peace, by means of the Treaty of Guarantee, it should also find for disarmament a political and economic formula. It was necessary to define the terms of the problem and not to give the impression that the League of Nations was en- croaching on the rights of States. France was the victim of an international calumny. After her victory she demanded justice. For France, victory had implied security and reparations, but, from the point of view of security and reparations, she had obtained nothing. If France was to discharge her duties towards the Allies under the condi- tions contemplated for the payment of the American credits, she would have to pay every year 1,657 million gold marks, whereas she was receiving only 1,560. Thus the invasion would be charged to the account of the victims. The Supreme Council and the Financial Conference of Brussels had de- clared that the reconstruction of the devastated regions was the first necessity for the reconstruction of Europe. France had already expended 84 milliards on this work of reconstruction. France believed that the present European difficulties could not be com- pletely solved without the intervention of the United States, but as Europe had awaited the intervention of the United States during the war, so Europe must necessarily show her solidarity after the war without waiting for that inter- vention. The war had destroyed the economic system of Europe. No State was in a position to balance its budget or to make an inventory of its assets. 12 It was essential to emerge from the era of the moratorium and to find prac- tical solutions within the limits of the treaties and international agreements. The treaties of peace were not perfect, but respect for international con- tracts was the first foundation of peace. In order to solve the problems which presented themselves, it would be sufficient, without impeaching the treaties, to make the necessary calculations and to realize that the problems of repara- tions and of Inter-Allied debts were inseparable, and that the nations must choose between being united for the reconstruction of Europe or being united in a common disaster. Mr. Fisher said that he accepted M. de Jouvenel's proposal for three reasons. First, there was a close connection between reparations and Inter- Allied debts and the question of disarmament. Secondly, there was the urgent necessity of finding a prompt solution for these complicated and difficult ques- tions. France's right to obtain reparation for her devastated areas could not be disputed. It was not the end but the means upon which agreement had not yet been reached. The interests of Europe urgently demanded that a practical solution should be found. His third reason for supporting M. de Jouvenel was because the whole problem might at some future date be referred to the League of Nations. It would only be at the request of the Governments con- cerned that the Council would offer to intervene, and that request would not be made unless the Great Powers had been unable to reach agreement. He emphatically agreed with M. de Jouvenel that the support of the United States was essential. It was much to be regretted that the United States had withdrawn from European politics at the end of the war. Germany's present attitude seemed to make a settlement more difficult. He hoped that her business instinct, if nothing else, would cause her to co- operate in a rational solution of the problem, which was causing misery and distress throughout Europe. An appeal should be made tp the reasonable element of German public opinion. The Peace Treaties must be observed and executed. Should the problem be referred either wholly ar partially to the Council, this would be a departure from the strict text of the Treaty of Ver- sailles, and could only take place with the full concurrence of all the Powers concerned. III. Lord Robert Cecil's Speech in the Assembly September 26, on presenting the report of the Third Committee with the foregoing sixteen resolutions, is here reproduced verbatim, only an unimportant introductory paragraph being omitted: The subject of disarmament is no new one for the League of Na- tions. Fundamentally it goes back to Article 8 of the Covenant itself, and all the work that we have done this year and the work that we did last year and the year before has been based upon the principle and the procedure indicated in that Article. I need not read it to you because it is familiar to all of you. But one point I want to- emphasize is that while insisting very strongly on the necessity for the reduction of armaments, it assigns to the League of Nations a very special duty in that respect. It assigns to us the duty of formulating schemes for the reduction of armaments which are to be submitted to the Governments represented in the League for their final decision. What we are about, therefore, is 13 not to carry out reductions, but to formulate schemes on which reduc- tions may be made, if the Governments are willing to make them. In the First Assembly the subject was considered, but owing to the turmoil that still, existed in the world it was not possible to take any very striking step. The most that was done was to emphasize, by reference to many international pronouncements, the importance of disarmament, to make an earnest appeal for the ratification of the Arms Traffic Con- vention of St. Germain, and to appoint a new body a Temporary Mixed Commission as it was called mixed because it was to consist partly of civilian experts and partly of military experts to consider and report to the following Assembly what could be done. At the last Assembly we did make some little progress. We directed that statistics should be collected to enable a scheme of reduction after- wards to be formulated. We repeated, with great emphasis, our resolu- tions about the importance of putting a stop to, or, at any rate, of con- trolling the traffic in arms, and, amongst other things, we directed the Temporary Mixed Commission to bring up a definite scheme of disarma- ment for the consideration of this Assembly. I venture to submit to this Assembly that a considerable advance has been made this year. The various Commissions have been engaged, partly in preparatory work, work which is necessary for an ultimate scheme of reduction of armaments, and partly in making definite proposals which would result in a reduction of armaments if they were adopted by the Governments. On the preparatory side we have to report to you that a very con- siderable quantity of statistics has been prepared, which really do enable anyone who studies them to form a good bird's-eye view of the armaments problem. Indeed, I think the only criticism that can be made upon the work of those who have been engaged in collecting the statistics is that, if anything, they have been too elaborate and too thorough in their work; and one of the recommendations we put before you this year is that for the future the statistics should be confined strictly to the direct points which are of interest, namely, the actual peace strength of the existing armaments in the world, and the budgetary provisions that have been made in connection therewith. In close relation to these statistics has been, I think, a still more important collection of facts, and that is a collection of the statements of the various Governments as to their requirements for armaments. You will remember that, by the first paragraph of Article 8, the reduction of national armaments is to be to the lowest point consistent with national safety. Therefore, in any enquiry the first thing which you have to ascertain is what are the armaments required by the national safety of each State. The first element in that enquiry is naturally what the Government of each State thinks to be necessary for the safety of its 14 own country. We have received a very large number of replies. They are not complete yet, and we recommend strongly that they should be completed. But even now the facts collected are large and important. Some of the countries it would be invidious to mention names have given a very thorough picture of what they conceive to be their necessi- ties, setting out, not only the number of men, and so on, that are required, but the broad reasons for which they are required. Other States have not gone quite so much into detail; I wish they all had, but they have given us very important information. The result is a formidable total. Hundred of millions of pounds are stated to be necessary. Millions of men are required to be with- drawn from peaceful and remunerative vacations in order to be ready to fight the battles of their country. Apart from all other considerations, as has been often and continually pointed out by the economic advisers of the League, the strain on the finances of the world by this state of things is enormous. There is another fact which comes very clearly out of these statistics. We asked the Governments of the countries to make a distinction between what they required for external purposes, for resisting external aggres- sion, and what they required for internal purposes, for maintaining order, and so on, in their countries. The result is very striking and remarkable. The amount required for the maintenance of internal order, on the state- ments of the Governments themselves, I would almost say is negligible. It is quite a small fraction of the total forces required. Broadly speaking, I think, without any exception, the forces these millions of men costing hundred of millions of pounds are required only for the purpose of resisting aggression. What does that mean ? It means that we are paying this vast sum every year for no remunerative purpose whatever, for no purpose that does any good to a single soul. It is the price of international suspicion, and nothing else. (Applause.) I emphasize that because that note has to struck again and again in any enquiry in this subject. International suspicion, the fear of each State of its neighbor, the terror that it is going to be attacked by those who are nominally living peacefully with it, and round it that is the great obstacle to disarmament, the great factor in armaments, which the League, if it is going to deal with this question, must dispose of. We ask the Assembly in this connection to urge the Members of the League to complete as soon as possible the information which they have been good enough to give us so far; and in close connection with that we ask the Council to consider once again (they have once considered it before) whether the time has not arrived at which they can take some steps to carry out the last paragraph of Article 8, which says: "The Members of the League undertake to interchange full and frank informa- tion as to the scale of their armaments, their military, naval, and air 15 programmes, and the condition of such of their industries as are adaptable to warlike purposes." The statements that have been made by the Governments are a first step in that direction, but we hope that the Council may see some means of putting that interchange on a permanent and business footing. One other subject in connection with the preparatory work that has been done I must mention. If you are to reduce armaments and I talk for the moment only of land armaments, because it does not apply to naval armaments, nor possibly to air armaments it seems almost essential that you should have some unit by which they are measured. You must be able to show that such-and-such a country has such-and-such a strength, and other countries round it have such-and-such a strength. If you are to induce them to enter upon a common scheme of reduction, you must be able to measure the requirements or the suggestions you are going to make by some unit, and a great deal of the energy of the Tem- porary Mixed Commission during the last year was devoted to discovering some satisfactory unit of measurement for land armament. I believe it to be a very important measure if it can be achieved, and, indeed, it does not seem very easy to see how you can formulate a scheme for reduction unless you have such a unit. But the difficulties in arriving at a unit are very considerable. I suppose that in olden times the strength of an army roughly consisted of the number of men that you could put into the line. I am informed I do not pretend to be an expert in the matter that that would be a very unsatisfactory unit by which to measure modern armies, and that the mechanical part of modern aggressive equipment is so important that it may well be that it greatly exceeds in importance the number of the individuals who compose your army. That evidently, among other things and there are many other complications adds greatly to the difficulty of arriving at the unit. We have not yet succeeded. We are still investigating the matter. Personally, I believe that such a unit can be arrived at if we are content to have one which will be of broad, practical value, and if we do not attempt too great and too meticulous a scientific accuracy. I believe that it must be found in a combination of the expenditure authorized and provided for the armies together with the number of the personnel employed. Opinions differ as to which of those two factors will be the more important ; but out of a combination of those two the unit must ultimately be discovered. On that part of the subject we only ask the Assembly to give to the Temporary Mixed Commission the authorization to pursue its enquiries, and we make an earnest appeal, repeated more than once in this report, to the Governments of the Members of the League to give all the assis- tance they can to the Temporary Mixed Commission in their arduous investigation. 16 I now come to the actual work directly designed to produce a reduction of armaments. It is evident that there are three main divisions of that subject the armaments of the sea, the armaments of the land, and the armaments of the air. Of the three, the problems presented by sea armaments are undoubtedly the easiest. A navy consists for the most part of great ships which are obvious to all the world, which cannot be concealed, which have to be at sea if they are to be kept in effective order; and to a very large extent, as I understand the naval opinion of the day, the strength, of a navy depends upon the number and power of what are called its capital ships, its main fighting vessels. These ships, these great monsters, are not only quite incapable of being concealed, but they cannot be brought into existence without a considerable expendi- ture of time. If, therefore, you can limit the number of such vessels, you arrive instantly, immediately, at a method of reduction of naval armaments which is relatively easy to put into effect and relatively diffi- cult to evade. It is rather interesting to note that when you get beyond these ships, when you get to the smaller vessels, and particularly the submarines, which are not so obvious or so easily controlled, you have the most diffi- culty in arriving at a common agreement for the reduction of naval armaments. Now, as far as other efforts are concerned, we have, of course, the enormous assistance of what was done at Washington. You will find in the report of the Third Committee an acknowledgment of the debt that we all owe to the work which was done there. It was the most important step towards disarmament that has ever been taken. It was admirably accomplished. Though it seems ungracious to make any criticism, the only criticism that can be made is that it may be, perhaps, that the want of permanent machinery to watch over and complete that work may render its accomplishment not in all respects as great as its promise. Still, an enormous step forward was taken at Washington, and the main pur- pose of our proposal is to extend the work done there to other countries which were not represented at the Conference. You will find in our resolutions the actual proposal we make in this respect, and, as this is one of the most important parts of the report, I propose to read the resolution. The first one was : "(a) That an International Conference should be summoned by the Council as soon as possible, to which all States, whether Members of the League or not, should be invited, with a view to considering the extension to all non-signatory States of the principles of the Wash- ington Treaty for the limitation of naval armaments, it being under- stood that any special cases, including that of the new States, shall be given due consideration at the Conference." 17 The second one was: "(b) That the report of the Temporary Mixed Commission, to- gether with the report and the Draft Convention prepared by the Permanent Advisory Commission, as well as the text of the Wash- ington Treaty, should be forwarded immediately to the various Gov- ernments for consideration." What we actually did was this : A draft Naval Convention designed to carry out those principles was presented to us. Indeed, to be accurate, three draft Naval Conventions were presented to us, one by the English Representative, one by the French, and one by the Italian. They were referred to the Naval Section of the Permanent Advisory Commission, the Commission under Article 9 of the Covenant. That Section reported favorably on them in the main, and drafted a Convention of their own, largely on the lines of the Conventions submitted to them. That was in turn submitted to the Council and to the Temporary Mixed Commis- sion, and forms part of our recommendation. We recommend that this Conference should be called, that the draft Convention should be submitted to it as a basis for discussion, and that to that Conference all States, whether Members of the League or not, should be summoned. You will observe that we took the Washington basis. The Washing- ton basis I speak very generally and roughly was the status quo of naval armaments, together with a provision for a ten years' naval holiday from building. We took that basis because it had been accepted by the most powerful of the naval Powers, and because it provided a definite basis, something definite on which we could proceed. It is quite evident, however, that it cannot be applied in a cast-iron fashion. Modifications will have to be made in particular cases. There are States, I am glad to say, which have naval armaments so small that for the purposes of national security they may rightly claim an increased armament rather than a decreased armament. There is also the case of the new States, which have, some of them, no naval armaments at all. All these cases will have to be considered by the Conference, and no doubt whatever allowances ought to be made will be made by that body. The Conference is to be summoned, according to our proposal, by the Council of the League. I want in passing to note this. I sometimes read suggestions that international conferences are, as it were, an alter- native to League procedure. That shows how difficult it is to get men and women throughout the world to realize the facts of any particular problem. Anyone who has studied the procedure of the League knows that it works very largely through the summoning of special conferences to deal with special technical subjects. We have had a Financial Con- ference, a Transit Conference, an Epidemic Conference, and many others, and it is right that it should be so. This Assembly is in itself a great world Conference, but it is a great world conference consisting for the 18 most part of men who are skilled in statecraft, statesmen and diplomats, and it is quite evident that it does not contain the necessary technical knowledge to deal with the technical problems which any international organization must necessarily have to deal with. It is, therefore, a regular part of our procedure to summon such conferences as are here recommended, and there is no difficulty and no obstacle to those confer- ences including nations which are not yet Members of the League. I now come to the land question, and that is undoubtedly a much more difficult one even than that of the sea, because you have the difficulty as to units, which I have already pointed out, and you have this additional difficulty that by land attack sudden incursions can be made from one country into another, and it is not enough to provide, as we do in Article 16, for the eventual punishment of the aggressor, of the sudden and un- provoked aggressor, because it may be that during that aggression damage of so serious a character may be inflicted as greatly to injure the attacked country, whatever may be done at a later time. Danger of sudden incur- sions is really the reason why countries insist on maintaining these large peace forces, which I have already alluded to, and which are the subject of reduction if reduction can be established. That is an essential differ- ence between the land and the sea, and unless you deal with this difference you cannot hope to proceed to a real reduction of land forces. Therefore, the Committee have arrived at the conclusion, and present for your assent, this proposition, that if you are to persuade the great bulk of nations, and particularly European nations, to make a serious reduction of their armed forces, you must provide for them some alterna- tive security. You will find the actual proposal set out in the resolutions in our report. Since I have already consumed your time very largely I will not read those resolutions to you now. You will find that their principle is this: that if you are to have an effective, a fully effective reduction of armed forces, it must be general. That is obvious. You cannot have a partial reduction, because it would leave the countries which reduced their forces at the mercy of those who did not reduce their forces. It must be general. You cannot expect many of the countries to reduce unless you, give them some alternative security, and it is suggested that that alternative security is to be found in what is called a Treaty of Mutual Guarantee, that is, a treaty which will give effective, real, well-thought-out assistance to any country that is suddenly attacked. But that guarantee, if it is to be effective for disarmament, must be dependent on disarmament being carried out. And what I would say to this Assembly is that, though I believe that on those lines, and those lines only as far as I can see, a scheme of disarmament is to be found, there are certain dangers which must be guarded against and guarded against carefully. You must not allow the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee, which is designed for disarma- 19 ment, to change its nature and become merely one of the old type of defensive alliances. (Applause.) It will be absolutely fatal to the cause of disarmament itself if you once see re-established in Europe and the world the old system of groups of nations, allied amongst themselves no doubt, but allied against other nations, which will also form groups. If you once get that system of rival groups of nations in Europe all hope of disarmament is gone, all hope of progress is destroyed, and we are once again in the terrible condition in which we found ourselves at the eve of the Great War. (Applause.) Therefore in our proposal we lay emphasis on two safeguards. The first is that this alliance, this new guarantee, must be open to all nations without exception. (Applause.) We hope, some of us more sanguinely than others, that once you get that guarantee set up, once you get it begun and once you get it before the peoples of the world, the nations will hasten to join it. It will be the great hope for the peoples of the world, the only hope they have of getting rid of this burden of armaments and this menace of war. But whether few or more nations can be induced to join it at the outset, it must be open to all nations that is an essential feature of the scheme. The second feature is this, that guarantee and reduction of arma- ments must go hand in hand. I do not mean to say that you will not, in some cases, be able to obtain reduction of armaments without a guarantee ; so much the better where that can be done. There are cases, which we were told of in the Committee, of the Scandinavian countries which desire to reserve liberty of action, on the theory that they may be able to carry out very extensive reductions of their armaments without any guarantee. It is evident that geographical position may enable cer- tain groups of countries) to do that, and in that connection perhaps I may be allowed to mention, as it is mentioned in the report, the Congress of the South American States which is to be held at Santiago next March. It may be that they can arrive at some system of wholesale reduction of armaments, not dependent upon guarantee. But, speaking generally, you will not be able to get a general reduction of armaments without some alternative security such as a guarantee. Therefore you cannot hope for your general reduction without guarantee. But it is equally true that you cannot ask for a guarantee without reduction; for some nations to undertake such a guarantee as this would be a very heavy responsibility. There may be some nations who will hesitate to undertake it. I hope that they will get over their hesitation. I want to see this a uni- versal movement in which all nations will take a part, because in the last analysis it is to the interest of all nations that there should be general disarmament and consequently general peace. But it will be a heavy demand to make upon some nations. It will be exposed to very simple, 20 facile, popular misrepresentation, and the only thing which you could say to nations of that kind is this : "You have got to pay some price for general disarmament; if you want peace you must have disarmament, and if you want disarmament you must be ready to pay a price in order to obtain it. You can get nothing for nothing in this world, and if you desire disarmament you must be prepared to give a guarantee." (Applause.) Of course, .the broad principle of a guarantee is merely a cut at the roots of that international suspicion of which I have spoken, and unless you can destroy that no effective advance can be made towards disarma- ment; and though I believe that the general guarantee is an essential feature in any attack on that international suspicion, an essential feature in the process which has been eloquently called from this tribune, moral disarmament, I do not believe that it is the only step which must be taken if you are to achieve that result. (Applause.) I will not dwell on it at length to-day, but at the end of our report you will find that we emphasize one aspect of that case as strongly as we can. In the Third Committee we have been much impressed, as every other person who has given any attention to the subject must be impressed, with the terrible condition of Unrest and disquiet prevailing in the world, and particularly in Europe, as a consequence of the eco- nomic difficulties which unhappily exist. The collapse of the exchanges, the prevalence of unemployment, the hindrance to international trade, are symptoms of a profound unrest and disquiet which must react upon the political and military situation and contribute to the maintenance of that international suspicion which is the very root of all evil in this matter; and we have ventured to press upon this Assembly, and if we may do so upon the world, the vital importance of coping with this eco- nomic difficulty. We have not concealed from ourselves that one of the main causes of it is the question of inter-Governmental indebtedness, the question of reparations and Allied debts of which so much is heard, and to solve which so many attempts have been made. We venture to urge on those immediately interested the importance of a solution to these questions. We venture to appeal to all the nations to lend their moral support, and, if necessary, other support also, to their solution, and though it is not our business to point out the steps which should be taken, I venture to say that this question can only be solved if it is approached in an international spirit, if creditor and debtor, victor and vanquished are alike ready to make sacrifices. (Applause.) It is only in a spirit of that kind that a solution of this question will be reached. (Applause.) Ladies and gentlemen, those are the steps towards moral disarma- ment which we urge this Assembly to endorse. But we do not ask you to wait there until that has been carried out before anything is done; 21 on the contrary, the two causes must proceed, pari passu moral disarma- ment and material disarmament must go together. You will be able to achieve material disarmament, the more you get moral disarmament ; the more you get material disarmament, the more you will achieve moral disarmament. And there are some things which can be immediately done. There is the question of the private manufacture of arms and the arms traffic to which I have referred. We urge upon you this. We had under our consideration a draft scheme for the control of the private manufacture of armaments, and we urge that that should be considered by the Tem- porary Mixed Committee, and that a definite scheme should be elaborated upon it. As for the arms traffic, that is, indeed, a melancholy story. I do not believe it is possible to exaggerate at any rate, it is very difficult to exaggerate the importance of that question. I believe that if, three years ago, we had had a proper control of the traffic in arms very many of the disturbances and hostilities, much of the fighting that has since taken place, would never have occurred. (Applause.) It is really a melancholy picture that one gets of certain aspects of human nature, when you consider what is actually going on in this matter. The other day I read this statement in a newspaper I do not vouch for its truth, but it is, at any rate, an illustration of what might easily happen, even if it has not already occurred: "According to trustworthy information received from quarters that are informed of Bolshevik activities in various countries, it appears that agents of the Moscow authorities are buying considerable quantities of arms. A very large order for armored cars, lorries, motor-cars, and, it appears also, for machine-guns, is understood to have been placed with . . ." a particular works, which is there named. What a melancholy thing that we, the countries in the West should actually be engaged in arming a Government, one of whose main tenets it is that it is the enemy of all the existing Governments of the world. Yet that can go on at present, and does go on, as every one knows. It is called "business enterprise," I believe; I should be inclined to give it a rather harsher name. (Applause.) From the very outset of the League this question has been taken up. At Paris in 1919 a Convention was framed to deal with this question. It was accepted by those who were there, subject, of course, to ratification. Since then at every meeting of the Assembly strong resolutions have been passed, urging its acceptance by all the nations of the world, and after three years' continuous effort we have arrived at this position, that prac- tically all the important nations of the world have accepted it, and have agreed to ratify it and to promote the necessary legislation to make it effective in their countries on one condition, that it was universally accepted. 22 The one exception was the United States of America, and we hoped to receive their assent to this Convention. It is not for us to criticize them, but we received on July 28th last a definite statement that the Govern- ment of the United States was not in a position to ratify this Conven- tion, and I am afraid, therefore, that effort to control the traffic in arms must now be definitely ruled out as a possibility. There is one favorable aspect of the matter which I must not forget. In the note which has been sent us is contained, as you will see in our report, the statement that "The Government of the United States is in cordial sympathy with efforts to restrict traffic in arms and munitions of war, . . ." and that "It is desirous to co-operate for the purpose of suitably controlling the traffic." That is a very important declaration, and we venture to hope that we may be informed of the conditions on which the United States will join in this effort. Our resolution is to this effect: "That it is highly desirable that the Government of the United States should express the objections which it has to formulate against the provisions of the Convention of St. Germain, and any proposals it may care to make as to the way in which these objections can be overcome." Then we go on to ask that the Temporary Mixed Commission should be instructed to continue its labors in framing a plan for controlling the traffic in arms and preparing a suitable Convention as soon as it can. I do earnestly hope that this object may be achieved, because I am satisfied that of the minor steps that can be taken none would be more valuable than an effective Convention for the control of the traffic in arms. Ladies and gentlemen, I pass from that to the final division of my subject, namely, the question of control of the air forces of the world. No doubt the control of the traffic in arms will do something for that purpose, but not much. No doubt the air problem is the most difficult of all the three, and the question of attack from the air will be one of the subtlest problems in the future. The developments of air attacks are the most obscure that we have to deal with. Immense progress is constantly being made in the art of aviation and air attack, and owing to the relatively small size of the units concerned, it is very difficult to devise any system of effective control, and the difficulty is greatly complicated by the fact, I am told, that commercial airships or aeroplanes can be used for military purposes with very slight, if any, alteration. It is true we may be able to do some- thing, and one of the things we have been able to do is to investigate by means of budgetary control, and by control of the number of persons trained and capable of manning the air fleets of the world. Perhaps, also (this is another interesting line of enquiry which we must pursue), 23 something may be done by making air forces the special weapons which the League will have a right to call upon in order to carry out its duties under the Covenant, and more particularly which the guarantor Powers will have a right to call upon in execution of the provisions of the Treaty of Guarantees. But I fully admit that that part of our problem is the most difficult, and I am quite certain it is the most urgent. There is no doubt that since the war enormous advances have been made in this department of military knowledge. The machines, so I am informed, are in all respects better, the engines are more trustworthy, the lifting power is greater, the size and the effectiveness of the bombs have been enormously increased. I was told the other day that it would not be an exaggeration to say that bombs possess at least ten times the power they had at the close of the war, and, in addition, you have the awful and appalling possibility of poison gas and germ warfare. I know Conventions were made at Washington by which we recom- mended all the nations of the world to prohibit the use of poison gas, and still more the dissemination of germs, but I confess I feel that to be a very slender protection against these terrible possibilities when you reflect on what actually happened in the late war. If you are going to deal fairly and honestly with the matter you have got to face, at any rate, the possibility (I am afraid I should put it higher) that in a world- struggle, a struggle for life and death between the nations of the world, it will be impossible to limit the use of any weapon which may be effec- tive, or which may be thought to be effective, ini order to produce victory. What does this mean? I am told at the present moment, leaving out the question of poison gas altogether, that the means of attack are so terrific that the greatest cities of the world might in a short time be rendered uninhabitable, and that the only way of replying to such an attack would be by a counter-attack on> the cities of the aggressive nation. What an awful picture of the result of human progress ! What an awful possibility to contemplate, that unless the opinions we entertain here are realized, the only way of settling our disputes is by levelling to the ground the cities of the world and destroying the fruits of years and generations of human effort! And, remember, that this is leaving out all the possible developments of poison gas, the horrible possibilities, which are by no means remote, of an extension of that particularly terrible form of warfare. Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know of any means by which, if war continues, these things can be limited, and your Committee has only made one suggestion on the point. They think the peoples of the world ought to know what they are facing in another war, and the Committee ask you to consent to the appointment of a small Committee, whose duty will not be to pry into unknown secrets, but merely to bring together in an authoritative form the known facts, so that the people of the world 24 may know the abyss to which the world is being hurried at the present moment. (Applause.) Ladies and gentlemen, you will be glad to hear that I have nearly finished my review of this report, and I apologize for having detained you so long. We ask that the Temporary Mixed Commission may be re-appointed to continue its labors, and we hope it may receive in the carrying out of those labors the full assistance and support of all the Governments represented in this room, for the duties it has to perform are great and important, and their difficulties are enormous. It is no subordinate issue we are laying before you to-day. We are convinced, and I believe that you are convinced, that so long as offensive armaments exist sooner or later they will be used. My study of the subject, and, I believe everyone's study, leads to this inevitable conclusion that if, once again, we have to face a world- war, civilization itself will be destroyed. It is no exaggeration, but it is literally true, that the nations of the world must disarm or perish. The choice is before them. Let them choose life or death. We cannot compel them to choose, but we do think that the peoples of the world should be given a fair opportunity of choosing. We ask that you should help us, or that we should help you rather, to lay before the peoples of the world an alternative, a way of safety, a definite practical scheme of disarmament. Then let them choose. If they really are anxious to have peace let them take the way to peace, and, if not, let them take the way to destruction, and their blood be upon their own heads. (Loud and pro- longed applause.) IV. Speech of M. de Jouvenel in the Assembly After Lord Robert's speech, M. Scialoja (Italy) addressed the, Assembly, and then M. de Jouvenel spoke for France. A part of his address follows. It is of special importance, because the needs and fears of France are the central fact in the problem of disarmament. This was as clearly revealed at the Washington Conference as at the Paris Peace Conference: The great change which has been effected during the past century in the relations between man and the universe makes it impossible to doubt that we shall one day see a similar change in the relations between man and man, for it cannot be that mankind can be the only power in nature which the human brain fails to dominate. (Loud applause.) Fortunately, Lord Robert Cecil is an idealist, and I respectfully admire him for it. I know that perfection cannot be attained by men, or even by politicians, who are accused of every crime. This has been so since the beginning of history, as I think that the oldest known manu- script, the Theban Papyrus, which we preserve in the Bibliotheque Na- 25 tionale, contains this precept : "Do not mix with the crowd for fear that your name should be smirched." But I know, too, that the accusation which redounds most greatly tq the credit of a politician is perhaps that of being a Utopian, for in reality Utopia is often only a name given to the future by the past. (Applause.) The primary condition of establishing peace in the world is to believe in it. But there is another condition, and that is to study the sequence by which an idea can pass from the imagination of men into the realm of fact, and to satisfy and abide by the conditions which old civilizations, with their administrations, their habits of thought, and their routine, impose upon human aspiration. Lord Robert Cecil has attempted to satisfy these conditions, and I think he has very largely succeeded in doing so, by the Treaty of Guar- antee. We cannot forget that there have been long periods when within every country and within every tribe man's whole security rested in his strength and weapons, when he was his own law, his own police, his own justice, and that it has taken us long enough to realize how singular was this system of political and social security, whereby a man only felt safe in so far as he was a danger to his fellows. Nevertheless, men realized it at last, and gradually began to create a form of justice to which men of goodwill had recourse; then, much later, they organized a police force; then, later- again, they reached the point of organizing that system of insurance companies whereby the man whose house is burnt down can regain the money required for its reconstruction, and whereby the poor widow and her children may be certain of the bread which the dead worker will give them no more. Now, when nations followed the example of individuals by forming societies, their intention was to pass through the same phases as the individual, and, ultimately, to guarantee to the peoples as a whole ever larger forms of security similar to those which every country offers to each and all the individuals which comprise it. You have begun, gentlemen, by creating a tribunal the Permanent Court of International Justice which can, at present, define justice, but cannot dispense it. For its sentences are not obligatory. The words which it speaks from above the conflicts are often drowned by the clash of armed peoples. The international law of which we hail the birth is the only form of law which as yet includes no sanctions. (Applause.) By the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee Lord Robert Cecil has begun the organization of such sanctions ; in doing so he has fulfilled one of the most cherished projects of my country's Representatives the project which, in the early days of the League of Nations, M. Leon Bourgeois defined, with all the clearness of his lucid intellect, and which has been 26 spread afar and wide by the great voice of M. Viviani. Lord Robert Cecil has sought to organize that international power which must form the foundation of international law. The Treaty of Mutual Guarantee, which he proposed during the discussion on this subject, was envisaged by the Third Committee under three somewhat different aspects. First, there was Lord Robert Cecil's conception ; he desires a general treaty, or, rather, he desires to begin with a general treaty, which would bind all the countries of the world at the same moment, would cause them all to disarm in the same proportion, and would give to all a guarantee without risks. Then there was the Scandinavian conception. Its purport is that disarmament must be general, but that the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee need not be so; that the countries could swear to observe peace without undertaking to make others observe it. Lastly, there was the Latin conception, which was supported by the Representatives of Italy, Brazil, Roumania, Poland, and other countries, and was maintained by the French Representative with an obstinacy for which he asks your indulgence. When I recall the recent invasion of Belgium, and the still more recent invasion of Poland, when I realize that at this moment there are in Europe two great Powers whose alliance is the chief danger to the peace of Europe : the one a country of mystery more closely sealed to-day than in the beginnings of civilization, closed against all com- missions of control, and able to press forward the preparations for the next war, while the other can furnish the organization required by the first; and being convinced that humanity must first reinforce the most seriously threatened points, I, for my part, believe that individual treaties must precede the general Treaty. The whole cause of disarmament and peace must not be delayed on the hypothesis of a general treaty, for in that case it would be made to hang upon the refusal of a single nation ; on the contrary, I think the great Western nations should conclude individual treaties among themselves. By such individual treaties these great nations would assume obliga- tions not only towards one another, but also, and above all, towards the small and weak nations; they would give their guarantee to the most threatened frontiers. They would thus make possible a reduction of armaments by the nations which most need them, and have the greatest inducements to arm ; weak and trustful nations would thus no longer be left at the mercy of imperialistic, powerful, and enterprising Governments. (Applause.) The Temporary Mixed Commission and the Permanent Advisory Committee will examine these three conceptions. We do not exclude any of them, though we consider Lord Robert Cecil's the most desirable. In any event, and in whatever form these treaties may later be con- 27 eluded, there is no doubt that they must not be like the pre-war alliances, and that they must remain perpetually open to all nations of good faith, provided that their good faith be proved. (Applause.) But it is not enough to set up a tribunal, it is not enough to organize a police force; we must follow out the general idea of the insurance company. We must admit that the victory of civilization is perhaps not yet complete. One hundred and thirty years ago, in the early days of the French Revolution, a revolutionary speaker summed up all the hopes which the revolution aroused in Europe, and all the difficulties with which it met, in a striking phrase : "Remember that happiness is a new idea in Europe." This idea has been abandoned, it has been betrayed; but I know of one nation which has never renounced it, and which would think that it is useless to have shed so much blood at all the stations of all the Calvaries unless at the end there is a little light on the hill-tops. Set against this conception of civilization there is another, expressed in Bismarck's phrase: "Might is right"; and in Bethmann-Hollweg's : "Treaties are scraps of paper" the conception which with Nietzsche, the most famous philosopher of modern Germany, regards truth as the most ineffective form of knowledge. Of these two civilizations one must be right. Victory does not consist in scattered fleets, in destroyed armies and reconquered lands: victory is the bringing of men's minds to the victor's conception of human civilization. (Applause.) What, then, is the idea which must be rooted out of men's minds? It is the idea by virtue of which political, financial, and economic methods culminate in invasion. We have not only to secure ourselves against the invasion of to- morrow; we have to efface the marks of the invasion of yesterday. Reparations must follow the footsteps left by invasion. If we wish to avoid the war of to-morrow we must blot out the last traces of the war of yesterday. That is why the French Representa- tive made that first proposal to rid Europe of the increase of armaments, which is the legacy of the great war; to begin by reducing the total military, naval and air expenditure of every nation to the 1913 figure, calculated by the methods of the Temporary Mixed Commission; and he suggested, in the second place, the method which consists in joining together the problem of reparations and the problem of inter-Allied debts, in order to arrive, as soon as possible, at a solution of the whole economic and financial question which weighs down Europe, and, after giving the nations relief from the burden of armaments, to free their minds from anxiety with regard to their economic and financial future. 28 The Committee adopted both these proposals and submits them to the Assembly. In this way we hope that we have served well the cause of peace to which no country is more attached than my own. The more strongly my country has built up its national unity, the higher it has raised it, the wider the prospects of humanity it has per- ceived, and the more it has understood that its real destiny, inherent in its nature and history, is to carry from continent to continent, from sea to sea, the benefits of civilizations ignorant of one another, and thus to increase the thought of each people by the thought of all the others, in the hope of compounding one day out of the spirit of every age and the light of every clime the atmosphere which the modern man requires to draw the breath of life. (Applause.) Last year, at the Assembly, my friend and colleague, M. Noblemaire, who is kept from us by illness, told you how fierce was France's hatred of war. His words found an, echo in your hearts. I ask you, gentlemen, to keep them in your memory, and remember that, even if all the other nations forget the war, there is one that could not forget it, for she is the guardian of your graves, Great Britain, of yours, Dominions, of yours, Italy, of yours, Belgium, and of yours, Portugal, and of the graves of all the volunteers who came from most of the countries represented in this Assembly. During the war we acted as the advance guard of civilization, but we know that our victory was only possible because we were on the side of Right, because one by one the civilized nations took their places at our side, and at last, one day, we heard the cry, sublime in its heroism and its gratitude: "Lafayette, we are here!" Conscious of having constituted the first international force enlisted in the service of peace, mounting guard round the treaties, we await relief, and declare that the cause of peace will be definitely won in our eyes on the day when mankind, by bringing us the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee, will say to us in its turn: "France, we are here!" (Loud and prolonged applause.) 29 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. '5 J L.O IN STACKS SEP 2 8 1957 * . ;. - ^ 151963 /IPfi .7 7 fQfi 3 ".,'> \ ncp c IQCC Q ( 3 1 LD 21A-50TO-8/57 (C8481slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley Photomount Pamphlet Binder Gaylord Bros., Inc. Makers Stockton, Ca!if . PAT. JAN. 21. 1908 784943 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY