Handbook to the "Wksliingtoii ther rn. ^;ru:>"*' pctve7'^ ^^n- the etc nle7 H^ dson li le i'"^:^^^'"r'cM 1 »"2:>''!?0"' er crtce b^ ast^^;,W«^ frfli*' lu i)V •ston ^^'.t,.!*^''* Bo« acke» to the fev^Siiliillli Hi II Bl!((i f'ljii > |^^i?^*T*^\'. i'^"*'^ ROADS TO PEACE t 1 1 A Hand 'hook to the IVashington Conference CONTENTS The Meaning of the Conference Herbert Croly ^public Opinion in Japan . . . yohn Dewey frhe British View .... George Glasgow What France Wants . . . Sis ley Huddleston A Japanese Rebuttal .... Bruce B liven Private Enterprise and Pubb'c War M. 0, Hudson A Baedeker to the Conference Frank y, Taylor Sea Power in the Pacific . . . Stark Young 'SMaSSEsLffSr New Republic Pamphlet No. 2 Published by the REPUBLIC PUBLISHING CO., INC 421 West Twenty-first Street New York City 1921 JTtC / ^ -7 c^ V' Copyright 192 1 Republic Publishing Co. Inc. Roads to Peace A Hand-book to the Washington Conference What the Conference Means hy Herbert Croly I, Tllli; INTEREST OE THE UNITED STATES IN LAND ARMAMENTS THE most fundamental business with which the Washington Con- ference will deal is the sickness of Europe and the route to recov- /^^ ery. The President and J\lr. Hughes for reasons to which I will ~- refer later shy away from this matter, but they cannot prevent its consid- eration and they have not dared to try. Indeed, by including land disarma- ment in the agenda, they invited the European delegates to propose for discussion both the poUtical dissensions and the economic disabilities of Europe. The European governments know perfectly well that their expenditures on armaments are one of the chief barriers to. economic recovery, but these expenditures are only the doctor's bills which their political maladies force them to pay. They will propose, consequently, to discuss the limitation of land armaments in relation to the national conflicts of which these armies are the instruments, and as this proposal will only repeat the proposal of the United States in relation to the discussion of naval armaments, the American delegation cannot refuse. Yet the inability to refuse will place the American government in an awkward position. For the British and French delegations will, in for- mulating their attitude towards European armament and its economic effect, focus the discussion upon an embarrassing aspect of the subject. They will insist upon the impossibility of recovery without positive as- sistance from abroad, which the United States is alone in a position to supply; and they will ask the United States to toe the mark. This the American government is extremely reluctant to do. No matter how courteously it refuses, the refusal will look churlish and selfish. What is the justification for the refusal? And what will be its effect upon the outcome of the Conference? The French argument and policy is ingeniously and persuasively stated by Mr. Sisley Huddleston elsewhere in this pamphlet. It is [3] 478419 in substance a' feiwsai to • dx\3Ctrm until France can count upon the pay- ment of her bill for reparations and upon absolute future security. She will ask substantially as a price of disarmament that the American gov- ernment guarantee the payment of the reparations account and enter into a defensive alliance with her against Germany. She does not ask for the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, but she does ask for the ratification of the Anglo-French-American agreement to protect the French frontier against another German attack. She cannot consider any reduction of military expenses and land armaments unless an Ameri- can army remains actually or potentially upon the Rhine. An American government controlled by the Republican party cannot acquiesce in this argument without repudiating its declared policy with respect to European entanglements. It rejected the Covenant of the League chiefly because of Article X and the consequent implication of the American nation in European territorial disputes. The proposed Anglo-French-American convention would, far more than the Covenant, constitute a guarantee by this country of the territorial disposition's of the Treaty of Versailles. For France will construe any attempt by Germany to escape from the Treaty as an attack, and as Germany re- covers, if she is allowed to recover, she will become increasingly re- bellious against tbe legislation of Versailles. In that event the Ameri- can nation would have assumed an onerous military responsibility — one which it could not perm.anently redeem unless it added svibstantially to the number of its trained soldiers and to its whole military equipment. The disinclination by the Republicans to ratify the Aliglo-French- American convention is dictated chiefly by a desire to keep the Almerican nation out of war, but in spite of its screen of self-'preoccupation it makes for a result which is as much to the advantage of Europe as to the advantage of this country. An American guarantee to France against attack by Germany would not bring appeasement to Europe and it would not result, except perhaps for a moment, in the reduction of European military expenses and land armament. It would perpetuate the European civil war by giving renewed vitality to its major causes. Reassured by the American guarantee, France would not feel the need of accommodat- ing her policy to the susce'ptibilities and the interests of Germany and Russia. Her convention with America would mean to her the confirma- tion of military victory, obtained as the result of American intervention, and a relief from the necessity, which she is now increasingly feeling, of seeking security b'y means of an agreement with Germany. The American nation cannot guarantee security to a France whose insecurity is rooted deep in European dis'sensions. It cannot pledge its military power to safeguard France against the consequences of a [4] foreign policy over which it exercises no control. The European nations, if they wish for security and recuperation, must first deal remedially with the causes of their own dissensions and move in the direction of a political reconciliation with one another. French opinion, faced with the impossibihty of collecting reparations from Germany and the necessity of choosing hetween a policy of accepting this fact or using it to destroy Germany, is hesitating. If France decides to carry on the destructiSVi of Germany, she will almost certainly isolate herself and bring wh/t remains of Germany nearer to Great Britain, America and Russi^/^ It is a very dangerous course which she may well shrink from adopting. But what is the alternative? If she does not wish or dare to destroy Germany and yet is not protected against ultimate German resentment, i's she not bound in the long run to seek an accommodation? Will not the logical and realistic French mind understand the force of this alter- native and act on the understanding? Would not a defensive alHance with this country cloud the issues and tempt her to pursue a temporizing policy of preventing the recuperation of Germany regardless of its effect upon Europe and the world? When the American friends of France and Europe urge an immediate political intervention in Europe by the American government, they are performing a poor service for the object of their solicitude. What they are really proposing is an assuimption by the United States of a re- sponsibility for European welfare and a leadership in European affairs, which, if it were successful, would be tantamount not only to the ab- dication of Europe as the king of continents, but to its supersession by the chief American nation. No doubt if the American people divined the opportunity of dominating the civilized world for a few generations which now lies within their grasp and if they were ready to subordinate the use of their economic and military resources to that end, they might by a colossal tour de force impose a temporary equilibrium on Europe and pose as its paternal rescuer. But the American people are not capable of such an effort of the imagination and the will, and if they were, they would commit themselves to an adventure ultimately dis- astrous to themselves and to Europe. Before it can accept American aid with safety or profit, Europe must mitigate its domestic animosities and dissensions. European recovery is primarily a European problem. It will take a European conference, in which Gprjnany and R ussia represented as equals, to engineer the work. The only way in which the European peoples can regain anything like their former power and prestige is to forget about France d'abord and Deutschland iiber Alles and become first of all good Europeans. When they have become better Europeans, they can ask Americans to become better citizens of the world. [5] Two years ago the advice to the European nations to earn assistance by becoming first of all good Europeans would heve seemed like a fan- tastic impossibility. It does not look very practicable today, but it is not as fantastic as it formerly was. P'ellowship in adversity has diminished some of the animosities, egotisms and conflicts which Europe inherited from the war; and adversity will, I am afraid, continue until the Europeans renew and increase their conviction of common interests and destinies. The American nation can and will alleviate the resultant suffering, as it did last year in Central Europe and as it is now doing in Russia. But it cannot take over responsibility for the condition 'or for the cure. If France will not reduce armaments without the presence, actual or potential, of American troops on her eastern frontier, then France will have to remain armed and both France and Europe will have to pay the bill. The French are not the only people in the world who are entitled to security. They will never get it for themselves until they are willing to share it with others. As long as the Treaty of Versailles is the foundation of European public law and the French attitude remains what it is. there is little or no chance of land disarmament. Neither can the American government take the lead in bringing it about. The American army is already re- duced to the volume of a police force ; and the French proposal, what- ever its temporary effects on European military expenditures, would increase the military responsibility of this country. The European nations have no sufficient excuse for passing the problem of diminishing land armaments on to the American people, x^merica may eventually help in reducing them to manageable limits, but only in case the Euro- pean nations will themselves move towards the conversion of Europe from a bigger Balkans into a greater Switzerland. In so far as the United States can help the European peoples in re- ducing their land armajnents to manageable limits, it should use for that purpose an economic rather than a political leverage. The case for American economic assistance to Europe is much stronger than the case pTor political and military assistance. An enormous proportion of the 1 iin^iiediately available financial and economic power of the world is c/ncentrated in the United States. The proportion is so large that European recovery will be unnecessarily and deplorabl}'- delayed uuless it can obtain American cooperation. Indeed it is no exaggeration to ^♦eay that without active American aid it will be impossible for the Euro- pean nations to balance their budgets, stabilize their currencies and re- store their credits. Of course the United States cannot by any display of generosity bestow solvency upon economically bankrupt governments any more than it can bestow security upon nations whose political lia'bili- [6] ties far exceed their political assets. But it can, should, and in the end nmst help Europe to write off financial liabilities which, if written off, would enormously alleviate the existing political exasperation, and in the end the military expenditures. France and Great Britain would willingly scale down the German reparation account whose size is a source of so much of that existing political instability, provided the American gov- ernment would not insist on collecting the debts due to this country. The American government is as little prepared just at present to cancel any considerable part of its loans to Europe as it is to guarantee the Rhine frontier, but we trust that in this second respeot the Conference will have an educational effect both upon Congress and the administra- tion. The delegates from the major European countries will have excel- lent reasons and^ opportunities to call the attention of the American delegation and American public opinion to the partial dependence of their political and military upon their economic liabilities, and the demonstra- tion, if submitted with tact will little by little dissolve the existing ob- stacles to the acceptance of the truth and will soak in. Will the assumption by the American government of the attitude to- wards European problems which I have indicated wreck the Conference? Will the refusal to guarantee Europe against the consequences of its dissensions result in a refusal by the European governments to consider on their merits the American proposals to limit naval armaments and to remove the causes of disorder in the Pacific? It may have this result. There is a disposition among European diplomats to consider national politics as necessarily the trading of exclusive advantages, and if this disposition prevails in Washington, and if the Aanerican government will not consider the European claim for economic assistance, the Conference may increase instead of diminishing international disorder. But there is a good chance that it will not. The American government may prove to be open to conviction about its share in the economic disabilities of Europe. For its own part it is not asking Europe to accept and approve an egotistic national American policy in the Pacific, but to help in defending and eradicating the existing causes of disorder and the excuses for naval armaments. The European governments can lend a hand with- out assuming American or Asiatic liabilities or imperilling any assets which belong properly to themselves. If they are candidly and wisely approached, they will, considering the predicament of the world and the pressure by public opinion for concrete results, be likely to consent. 2. THE INTEREST OF THE UNITED STATES IN NAVAL ARMAMENTS The United States cannot at present take the initiative in bringing about tb.e reduction of armies, the cost of which is ruining Europe. Its [7] inability to deal with the causes of the disorder and dissension in Europe, the expression of which is the Treaty of Versailles, prevents it from deahng with their effects in insecurity and armaments. But it occupies an entirely different position with respect to the reduction of navies. It is qualified in all probability to bring about a limitation of naval arma- ment and to give permanence to a holiday in the building of battleships by removing the reasons which have prompted its own and other govern- ments to compete for the control of the seas. Naval armament is a matter in which America is unavoidably and overwihelmingly interested. We have emerged from the war with a navy which will soon be on paper either a little inferior or a little superior to that of Great Britain. The United States is one of the three great naval powers in the world, and if it decided to become the first, it could afford to outbuild both Japan and Great Britain. It is one of the ironies of history that the actual outcome of the competition in naval armaments between Germany and Great Britain is the construction of a fleet by the United States which forms a more 'serious threat to British naval supremacy than the German or any other fleet has been since Napoleonic wars; but in this as in many other respects the war only precipitated a result which was likely some time to take place. The American nation is the creature of maritime exploration and traffic. During the pioneer period when we were conquering the continent, our eyes were fastened on the land, but sea power, its distribution and deportment, must always remain one of our chief objects of national and international solicitude. We have al- ready fought a war with Great Britain over what we took to be her bad maritime manners. We entered the late war as the result of a quarrel with Germany about a violation of the rules of the sea. We are not as yet dependent on the sea for subsistence, as are the British Isles, but it is only a question of time. A hundred million people with thousands of miles of coast line on both the Atlantic and the Pacific and with the welfare of its people increasingly derived from foreign commerce is, in a disorderly world, bound to need and demand a navy big enough to challenge the control of the seas. The American fleet was not built for the purpose of disputing the control of the seas with the British fleet. It was built as the result of a vague but intense feeling that the world was becoming an increasingly dangerous place, in which nations must arm for their own defence. Was there any justification for this apprehension? Not so far as Great Britain is concerned. American public opinion is not in my opinion any more apprehensive of danger from the British Empire than Canada is of an attack from the United States. If the American and British fleets were the only powerful navies now in existence, the two governments could [8] negotiate to reduce their size without raising any outstanding or serious difference of poHtical policy. But there is another powerful fleet in existence — that of Japan; and about the Japanese fleet Aimerican public opinion takes a different attitude. If the world is a dangerous place in the eyes of an American, it is chiefly because of the Japanese navy and army. He would not hesitate to approve any expenditure which his government might consider necessary to provide for naval protection against Japan. In his mind the American fleet has of recent years come to exist chiefly for that purpose. The situation with respect to naval armaments is, consequently, some- thing like this. There are three formidable fleets in existence — those of Great Britain, the United States and Japan. In spite of the existence of some friction between the United States and Great Britain, neither at present is afraid of the other's navy as a threat to its own safety. The statement is even more true of the relations between Japan and the British Empire. They are in fact allies for certain definite purposes. But the United States is afraid of Japan, and Japan is even more afraid of the United States. Why cannot the two governments quiet these fears by reaching a joint agreement to cut down their fleets by a third or a half or even two-thirds? And why can they not reach such an agreement without raising any differences of political policy? 3. WHY BRING IN THE FAR KAST ? They could, were it not for a fact of major importance. Japan is, of course, exclusively a Pacific power. The United States possesses long coast Hnes on both the Pacific and the Atlantic. The American people have had no reason to fear the British fleet, because unlike the German fleet it was not associated with a dangerously large army and because Great Britain tacitly approved of the IMonroe Doctrine which protected the Americans against the aggressive designs of European powers. But it is different in the Pacific. That part of Asia which is washed by the waters of the Pacific has endured fifty years of systematic foreign exploitation in which all the large European powers, except Italy, participated. Something over twenty years ago the American govern- ment started to protect China, and since then and particularly since the victory of Japan over Russia, the European nations abandoned the political penetration of China and confined themselves to economic penetration. Thereafter the only power which continued a policy of poHtical aggression on the Asiatic mainland was Japan. In 1910 the American government proposed the neutralization of the Manchurian Railways for the purpose of freeing China from the worst threat to its independence and giving reality to the policy of equal economic rights [9] for all nations in China, but Japan would not consider the proposal and allied herself with Russia in opposition to American interference. Later she used the occasion of the war to impose the Twenty-one Demands on China, to seize Shantung and to occupy part of Siberia. The Japanese navy is, consequently, the instrument of a policy of ag- gression, which looks in the direction of giving Japan political suzerainty over eastern Asia. The United States has reason to fear and resist this policy to an extent to which she has no reason to fear and resist the im- perialism of the European powers in Africa or in western Asia. She has historic interests and rights in China which Japanese aggression endan- gers, but that is not all. If during the next few generations Japan con- tinues to expand along the lines on which she has expanded during the last generation, she will become a danger to all free nations with a coast line on the Pacific. She will become a nation with engineers, capitalists, sailors and soldiers at its head, who have occupied territories on the mainland in order to obtain access to raw materials and an abundance of cheap labor, and who will seek to keep for their own benefit both these natural resources and the vast undeveloped market of the Chinese people. This Japanese Empire will need for its security a conscript army and a fleet strong enough to control the waters of the Pacific — a fleet which in the end will be commensurate with the size of this huge enterprise in political and economic imperialism. Such a fleet controlled by the same govern- ment which commanded the second largest army in the world and de- signed to safeguard a policy which deprives between three and four hundred million people of political independence, is a menace to human liberty which it would he foolhardy to ignore. Let us suppose the American government agrees with the British and Jaj^anese governments to reduce their fleets to one-third of the size which they will have reached in 1924, but ignores the differences of political and economic policy between Japan and the LTnited States, what would be the result? Japan would still possess a fleet large enough to protect her water communications with the mainland and the transmission of soldiers and commodities which the carrying on of her continental Asiatic policy demands. She could continue her policy of economic and political domination in China without any fear of hindrance and could snap her fingers, as she did in 1910, at the protests of the United States. Assuming the success of her attempts to industrialize China, she would accumulate resources in capital, industrial ecpiipment and technical skill, which would enable her, if necessary and when the time came, to defend her economic conquests with a fleet much more powerful than that which she can now afford. A limitation of naval armament, that is, without any attempt to do away with the economic [10] and political aggression which renders Japan dangerous immediately to China and ultimately to the United States, would not do anything per- manently to diminish the chances of war or the expenses of armament. The limitation of armaments as a physical fact is important, hut 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 free- dom and prevent the development of other nations, it is hound to arm in self-protection against the resentment and the fear of other nations. It may agree temporarily to limit its armaments 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 pro- vided her aggressors with their opportunity. In the end she will as- sume the job of protecting herself, but in the meantime those who understand the disastrous consequence of an indefinite continuation of the exploitation of the past must try to provide for her protection. If they disarm without raising any question about the results of their dis- armament on the political and economic conditions of the Far East, they may be as powerless to protect China as China is to protect herself. The British Empire with its fleet occupies an extremely significant and important relationship to the strategic strength of Japanese political aggression on the Asiatic mainland. Some twenty years ago it entered into an aUiance with Japan whereby Japan, in exchange for the protec- tion of Great Britain against an attack by combination of European powers, guaranteed British possessions in the Far East. The bargain promised to be of enormous benefit to both countries. It promoted Japan from the position of a suspected inferior who was never invited to dine with the diplomatic swells into a regular member of international good society who could not be ignored without giving offence to the Dowager Empress of the High Seas. It protected her in the event of war with another power from what had happened to her after her vic- tory over China. On the other hand, it enabled the British Empire to reduce its fleet in the Far Eastern waters without compromising the safety of its Asiatic colonies; and this was a most important consider- ation to a power which was, as a result of the expense of maintaining its supremacy in Eurpean waters, already feeling the need of naval concentration in the North Sea. It proved to be even more serviceable than it promised. It protected Japan during and after her war with Russia from European interference, while it enabled Great Britain, when the German fleet became a grave source of danger and the need of con- centration paramount, to withdraw all capital ships from the Far East. But its very success has involved undesirable and unexpected conse- [II] qiiences. Its declared object with respect to the Far East was to ensure stabiHty and to guarantee the open door into China and the territorial integrity of that country. Its result has been to assist Japan in dis- turbing the stabihty of the Far Fast and to prevent China or the United States from daring to set up an effective resistance. During the twenty years of the alliance's existence Japan has come to be the greatest single danger to Chinese political independence and the actual equality of economic opportunity in China. The British Fmpire is chargeable with a clear responsibility for this result. It has gradually withdrawn its capital ships from the Far East, and by virtue of the alliance, it has conferred on the Japanese fleet in the Far Eastern waters the function of maritime police which its own fleet has filled in the Atlantic. But in the Far East the police has also played the part of the aggressor. Japan has adopted a poHcy of continental conquest and expansion which depended for her security and continued prosperity upon the control of the seas. Her ally, the boasted Mistress of the Seas, is necessarily the accomplice of this policy. In 1910 the American government tried by pro- posing the neutralization of the Manchurian Railways to protect China and to check Japan. It depended for the success of its diplomatic en- terprise on British cooperation. But that cooperation was not forth- coming. In spite of the declared sympathy of the British Foreign Office with the political and economic objects of the American proposal, it was obliged when the conflict came, to favor its ally and to consent to the defeat of the intrinsically sound American proposal. Thus Great Britain looms as large as either Japan or the United States in relation to the discussion of the disorder in the Far East and the bearing of the disorder on naval armaments and disarmament. The British Commonwealth is as much interested in the pacification of the Pacific as it is in the pacification of the Atlantic. It is interested not only because of its possessions and concessions in China and because of its alliance with Japan, but because three of its self-governing do- minions expose long coast lines to the waters of the Pacific and have as much reason as the United States to dread the unchecked growth of Japanese military, naval, economic and political imperialism. Perhaps the reader will now understand why the American govern- ment associated a Conference on the Limitation of Armaments with a consideration of the political and economic problems of the Far East. It hopes by means of this association to remove the causes of suspicion and misunderstanding among the three great naval powers. If it suc- ceeds they will agree to limit naval armaments not merely because their fleets cost too much or because armaments are a danger to "civilization," b'ut ibecause they have nothing to gain by maintaining them and nothing [12] to lose by giving them up. It may not succeed, but it is adopting the most promising way of associating the reduction in naval expenditures with the prevalence in one part of the world of socialized standards of international conduct. It seeks to convert disarmament from a tem- porary expedient to rescue "civilization" by saving money, into a more enduring source of international security and peace. In so far as it suc- ceeds it will set up in one of the major territories and oceans of the world an understanding which may develop into a permanently sound working relationship. It will begin to do for a particular neighborhood the work which the League of Nations was supposed to do for the whole world. Its authors hope by limiting the area of the liability and the size of the problem to accomplish a more satisfactory job. The advisor of President Harding who proposed and carried out the idea possessed the vision of a statesman. He was reviving the best ar- ticle 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 neu- tralization 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 settle- ment 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. It would enormously increase the feeling of general security and the confidence in the method of conference and consent, as opposed to the method of force, in the adjustment of international dif- ferences. It would disarm the three great naval powers not merely in the flesh but in the spirit. It would not only do something to save western civilization but it would make it better worth saving. 4. THE TEST OF AMERICAN GOOD FAITH It will not be easy for the American government to succeed. The ob- stacles are prodigious. The pitfalls are many, dangerous and carefully camoufilaged. The keen desire for success may prove to be the worst pitfall of all. It may persuade the American delegation to sacrifice more obscure but fundamental and enduring benefits for a tangible and definite but superficial achievement. When the Conference comes to an end, it may be difficult to decide how far it has succeeded. After the Paris Conference equally competent people declared Mr. Wilson's work to be both a brilliant success and a flagrant failure. Mr. Hughes' man- agement of the Washington Conference may provoke equally sharp dif- ferences of opinion. [13] Mr. Hughes' best chance of success depends upon the adoption b'y the American delegation of a vigorous initiative with respect both to the limitation of naval armaments and an understanding about the political and economic future of the Far East. There will exist in the minds of the foreign delegates and particularly in the minds of the Japanese a profound suspicion of the American motive in precipitating a discussion of the Far Eastern problem. They accuse the United vStates of promoting an aggressive policy, dangerous to the future se- curity both of Japan and China, under the pretence of protecting China. It is important, consequently, to establish early in the Conference the good faith of this country by some unequivocally self-denying, disarming and soothing proposal. Its substance should consist in a plan for the drastic reduction of naval armaments in the Pacific, this reduction to be shared on practically equal terms by the three powers and to endure for a definite number of years. But it should be explicitly affirmed as part of its agreement to disarm that the object of the reduction is to remove the obstacles to the creation of a concert of Pacific powers based upon an understanding about the future of China. The American government, if it is seeking in good faith to lay the foundations for peace and order in the Far East, has much to gain and nothing to lose by starting the Conference with a proposal of its own for partial disarmament. It can use its existing navy as the in- strument of two possible strategic objects in the Pacific. One would be the protection of its own coasts and the Panama Canal against of- fensive operations by a hostile fleet. The other would be the defence of the Philippines and China against an attack by a combined fleet and army. The first of these objects would be accomplished even more ef- fectively by a general limitation of naval armament than it would be by the existing American navy. The other object places an excessive strain upon the American navy as it exists or as it will exist when the present program of new construction is finished. The defence of China or the Philippines against Japan exceeds the power of any American fleet which is not half larger than that of Japan and which is not pro- vided with an impregnable naval base on the other side of the Pacific. If the United States prepares to defend either the Philippines or China in the event of war with Japan, it will have to build a veritable Gibraltar on the island of Guam and to seek a greater preponderance in capital ships than its existing program of new construction provides. The Navy Department has frequently proposed for this reason the cre- ation of such a base in Far Eastern waters, but Congress has never con- sented and it never should consent. For if the United States was ade- quately prepared to defend China and the Philippines, it would b'e [14] equally well prepared to attack Japan. An adequate American naval base at Guam would be as dangerous to Japan as a Japanese naval base somewhere on the Mexican coast would be to the United States. The American nation cannot afford to flourish such a threat against the Japanese nation. Japan in spite of her large armament is a poor and much less powerful country than the United States. She has more reason to fear us than we have to fear her, and for that reason the American government should carefully refrain from giving her justi- fiable cause for alarm. If the Japanese government should lease Mag- dalena Bay from Mexico and announce its intention of building on its property a naval base, the American government would consider the act an evidence of a hostile intention and declare war rather than al- low the operation to proceed. The fortification of Guam and the estab- lishment of a naval base on that island would be almost as dangerous to Japan as would the occupation of Magdalena Bay by Japan for mili- tary and naval purposes be dangerous to the United States. The two cases would possess minor differences of some importance. Yet if Con- gress appropriated the money for the fortification of Guam, Japan would have as fair an excuse in the interest of her safety to declare war on the United States as the United States would in the other event to declare war on Japan. In managing the coming Conference the first object of the American government should be to prove to Japan that she has no reason to fear us, that we do not propose to use the defence of China as an excuse for attacking her. The American government can allay Japanese sus- pision by promising not to fortify Guam or to establish any naval base on the other side of the Pacific which would enable the American fleet to assume control of those waters. Such a promise coupled with a proposal to limit existing armaments would begin by placing the discus- sion on the plane not of a contest of forces but a meeting and a com- parison of minds. Unless the discussion takes place on a plane of this kind, it can only harvest a meagre, a specious or a fugitive success. By explicitly and finally renouncing the plan of building a fortified naval base on the other side of the Pacific, the United States would finally renounce the idea of coercing Japan by means of a naval victory, but it would not renounce the idea of defending China against foreign aggression. It would merely have to devise other and better means of providing the protection. A war between Japan and the United States undertaken for the defence of China would create conditions likely to increase her subjugation. If Japan won, the Japanese government would apparently be entitled to seize China as the prize of victory as it seized Korea and in part ]\Ianchuria as the prizes of a victorv over Russia. If [15] Ik the United States won, its victory would be so enormously costly that it might well seek compensation at China's expense as well as Japan's. It could hardly fail to become as dangerous to the independence of its ward as was its enemy. He who proposes to protect China by a costly war is a poor friend of China. War about China between two foreign powers would increase China's dependence not her independence. The only real security for her independence must come from an un- derstanding among foreign nations about her status and future. A war would not promote such an understanding and every American friend of China should recognize this truth. But the renunciation of naval and military coercion of Japan would not imply consent to Japanese eco- nomic and political aggression in the Far East. It would not imply the renunciation of explicit and stubborn resistance to Japan on the part of the American government. It would not even prevent the American government from bringing, if necessary, another kind of pressure to bear upon a Japanese government which treated beneficial American proposals with respect to China as Japan in 1910 treated the proposals of President Taft. The alternative pressure which the American govern- ment can use, is the economic political and .moral isolation of Japan. The isolation by American diplomacy of a stubbornly unamenable Japan would inflict on the Japanese nation a calamity almost as intoler- able as military and naval defeat. The psychology of Japan is that of a newcomer in the society of civilized nations. The Japanese people are imitative, adaptable and most anxious to please. They would dread more than anything else the loss of the friendship and the esteem on the part of Europeans and Americans which during the last generation they have gradually earned. If once they were convinced that the con- tinuation of their past and present policy in China would bring down upon them the hostility and disapprobation of the major part of the civilized world, they would soon become more amenable. They cannot afford isolation. Their existing power is built up on European assistance or connivance and if that assistance were withdrawn, they would lose both prestige and self-confidence. Their policy, as they very well know, has made them most unpopular on the continent of Asia. As long as they are allied with the British Empire, they are not afraid of the conse- quences of this unpopularity, but once they are isolated they would, despite their powerful army and navy, have good reason to be afraid. Japanese imperialism in China is the creature of its European pre- decessor in the same region. The Japanese government copied its for- eign policy from European models just as it copied its ships, its steel mills and its whole technical equipment. It has played the game of international politics according to the rules which prevailed when it [16] entered a generation ago. Those rules, although they still prevail in European diplomacy, have brought a hideous calamity upon the world. They do not possess their former authority. It is necessary that they be revised. The American nation wants to have them revised. Its government has called this conference to see whether they cannot be revised with respect to a region near the United States but remote from Europe. This region is nearer to Japan than it is to the United States. It is most disturbing and dislocating for Japan to accept the new rules, but if she must she will. She cannot play a lone hand and she cannot afford to h'e excluded from good international society. And in the long run the new rules will benefit Japan no less than China and the United States. They will save Japan from the fate which overtook Germany and which sooner or later overtakes all peoples who make their own prestige and welfare dependent upon the domination and exploitation of others. 5. ANGI.O-AMIJRICAN CGOPEIRATION The problem, then, of the American delegation after it has proved its good faith by taking the initiative in disarming, is the problem of persuading the European governments to join the American government in providing for the protection and the future welfare of China. The political objects which American diplomacy has always sought to accom- plish in the Far East are objects which can only be thoroughly accom- plished by means of general and loyal consent. There is, however, one European government and people who need not only to consent to the plans of the American government but whose consent must, if those plans are to succeed, assume the form of active cooperation. I refer, of course, to Great Britain. Until recently the prospect of any effective diplomatic cooperation be- tween Great Britain and the United States in the Ear East looked ex- tremely doubtful. The British Foreign Office was wedded to the alliance with Japan. That contract was its most conspicuous diplomatic achieve- ment. It had during a troubled period been extremely useful to both partners and British statesmen were most reluctant to give it up. British newspapers talked, consequently, about broadening the alliance with Japan to include the United States, and by the use of such phrases ex- hibited minds entirely untouched by the American grievance against the alliance. Recently, however, the British government has, according to the newspapers, taken a decision which looks in a much more encouraging direction. It has decided to concentrate a large portion of its battle fleet in Far Eastern waters. Such a decision, if it proves to be true, can have only one meaning. It means a reversal of the policy adopted by the [17] Britisli government of using the Japanese fleet as its agent in the Far East. Great Britain again becomes an actual instead of a potential naval power in the Pacific. As an actual naval power she can, if advisable, disagree with Japan and abandon the alliance without exposing her Far Kastern possessions to Japanese attack. It looks, consequently, as if the British government were prepared at least under some conditions to give up the alliance with Japan and seek a new basis of security in the Far East. If she is, the one in- superable obstacle to the success of the conference has disappeared. Anglo-American cooperation then becomes possible. As a consequence it also becomes possible to bring pressure upon Japan to let up on China without threatening war in the event of her refusal. The two chief maritime powers could isolate Japan morally and physically and deal a fatal blow to her prestige and self-confidence. It does not, of course, follow that the two English-speaking powers will cooperate because they can. Their cooperation will depend on their ability to agree upon a joint definition of policy with respect to China and upon a joint method of rendering the policy effective. They may very well fail to agree. If they do agree, they may pay an excessively stifif price for the agreement. The Chinese problem is extraordinarJiy difficult and complicated. When dealing with a political and eco- nomic jungle as dense, as obscure, and as dangerous as that of China, equally well-informed, intelligent and disinterested men are bound to differ. In so far as the negotiation falls into the hands of statesmen who are not well-informed, intelligent and disinterested, the area of difference threatens to be hopelessly unmanageable. Such being the situation, how much can be reasonably expected in the way of agree- ment? And what would be the salient characteristics of a good as compared to a bad agreement? 6. A SUPREME COUNCII, FOR THU FAR EAST The most formidable obstacle to the negotiation, by the governments represented in the Conference, of a satisfactory agreement about China consists in the necessary discrepancy between the declared purposes of their Chinese policy and their actual position and interest in that country. Inasmuch as they represent civilized Christian peoples who must always look morally impeccable to themselves, the statesmen assembled in Wash- ington will have to assume and proclaim that their national policies in China respect the independence and contribute to the welfare of the Chinese nation. The proclamation will not be entirely true. All these nations will by cajolery, fraud or force have obtained political or economic concessions which impair Chinese independence and whicli [i8] contribute not to the welfare of the Chinese people but to their injury. They, none of them, can come to the Conference with entirely clean hands. Japan has merely carried further and longer a policy which all foreign powers have practised in China. Formerly the next worst offender to Japan was Russia. Now that Russia is down and out the British Empire is the power whose vested interests in China are most inimical to the welfare and independence of that country. Is it likely that a group of governments which themselves profit from Chinese political impotence will agree upon any thoroughgoing and satisfactory plan to cultivate her political and economic independence? Almost equally formidable is the obstacle presented by the lack in China of any one authoritative central government. The Chinese nation is undergoing an economic, political and social revolution which will last a long time and during which all kinds of disorder will thrive and the country will be torn by many conflicting centres of political authority. Under such conditions it is extremely improbable that the Conference will or can reach a satisfactory detailed settlement of the problem of China. Any specific settlement which the conferees could now reach would have to recognize and perpetuate too many undesirable vested political and economic interests. It might take the form, for instance, of confirming the Japanese grip on Manchuria and Siberia as the price of withdrawing from Shantung, or of recognizing British interests in and about Hong Kong in return for the surrender of Weihaiwei. A bargain of this kind, no matter how many powers recognized and signed it, would not constitute a settlement any more than the Treaty of Versailles was a settlement. If the Conference gives birth to such an abortion it will, no matter how much it accomplishes in the way of limit- ing armaments, make eventually more for war than peace. The friends of China and of order in the Pacific should oppose anything of the kind as uncompromisingly as they opposed the cession of Shantung to Japan. The only possible settlementt is one which looks in the direction of assist- ing the Chinese people to become as much the master of their own house as is the American people. If the Conference cannot forge a specific agreement which points in this direction, the American govern- ment should at least block any agreement which would prevent the ulti- mate adoption of such a program. It should exclude any provision which would increase the obstacles to the restoration of Chinese independence. Anglo-American cooperation, however, even though it cannot effect a wholesome detailed settlement of the Chinese problem may still induce the Conference to move towards rather than away from the ultimate emancipation of China. The American government, for instance, with English backing may succeed in doing away with such a gross abuse a*s [19] the occupation of Shantung and such an intolerable violation of Chinese independence as the Twenty-one Demands. It should insist on the necessity of these renunciations as the only decent way of vindicating the reality of the principles which both Japan and Great Britain have repeatedly recognized as binding on themselves — the principles of the political independence of China and the equality of all naitions in their access to Chinese markets. Then after having restored a little vitality to the principles of right which have been so often repeated and so little practised, the American government could propose as the next logical step the constitution of a permanent council of the Pacific powers. This Council of Far Eastern powers would consist fundamentally in a permanent edition of the Conference itself. By bringing it into exist- ence the Conference would recognize at once the limita'tion of its possible achievement at any one :sitting, yet the necessity of keeping alive a similar body to deal with any and all common phases of the Far Eastern quesition. The several members of the Council or Concert of Far East- ern powers would simply agree to consult one another about their future policies with respect to China and to recognize as the foundation of their common action the twin principles of cultivating Chinese independ- ence and of opening the door into China to all nations on equal terms. They would constitute in effect a political consoritium which would supplement the financial consortium and which would shut out independ- ent action by any one member of the group. But this poliltical consortium would have to prove its good faith from the start by admitting China to representation in its councils.The effective value of the Chinese rep- resentation would depend upon the amount of coherence which the Chinese are able to infuse into their political organization, but even if in the beginning the Chinese delegation represented only a weak and doubtful centre of authority, some Chinese government should, if pos- sible, ibe admitted to consultation. Its admission would give the Chinese a motive to compose their differences and establish a recognizable state. Almost as important as the representation of China in the con'sortium is the representation of Siberia. At the present moment the independence of Siberia is being threatened quite as much as the independence of China; and the continuation of the threat would be equally dangerous to future peace and security in the Far East. The Siberians are a people of European blood and culture who are resident in the East and who like the Australians will eventually form a useful medium of communi- cation between the East and the West. They would have the value of contributing to the Pacific Concert a point of view analogous in economic outlook to that of China — the point of view, that is, of an economically immature land power which needed capital for develop- [20] ineiit. Their presence in the Concert would diminish the preponderance in that body of the maritime as contrasted with the land powers and so help to strengthen its balance. Many American friends of China will doobt the advisahility of such a council for the same reasons which persuaded them to oppose the financial consortium. They will not even consider the admission of China and Siberia any sufficient guarantee that the Concert might not become a huge international agency of exploitation and gradual subjugation. Tlicy will fear that it will tie the hands of China's friends and subject them to the obligation of compromising and bargaining with China's enemies. These fears may be well founded. The beneficial effect of such an agency as the proposed Pacific Concert will depend upon the future triumph of humane and liberal ideals in the domestic political life of its members. But the objection is not conclusive. The United States and China can always smash the Concert by resuming their liberty of action. In the meantime it binds the powers which are preying upon China no less than the powers which are not, and the aggressive powers are those which for the present need binding. It is extremely important during the period of revolutionary dislocation in China that individual govern- ments be prevented from using the political disorder as an excuse for isolated intervention. If the Concert endures there can be no intervention without general consent; and this will enormously increase the difficulty of obtaining a decision in its favor. The friends of China could veto any proposal to interfere. They would, considering the differences of interest among the members of the Concert, have a fair chance to block it. But, of course, the Concert would fail, if in the long run inertia was the result of the obligation of its members not to act with- out consultation. There is as much need of positive orderly change in the world of international facts as in the world of domestic facts. In the past the recognized method of producing change in the world of international facts was a successful war, and nations which were coming on and proposed to create a larger place for themselves in the world, such as Germany or Japan, built up armies and navies for the purpose. But the changes produced as the result of armaments and successful wars are unstable, costly and often undesirable. The con- science of mankind is in revolt against such a b'arbarouis and clumsy agency of international legislation. That is why it is insisting on dis- armament. But in so far as it succeeds in limiting armies and navies, it must provide some other agency for producing po'sitive changes in the world of international facts. If, for instance, the Washington Con- ference does effect a considerable reduction of the navies of the great maritime powers, it must create some permanent agency of international [21] legi'slation in the Far East other than armament and war. The Pacific Concert must in the long run be able to bring about needed and desirable changes as the result of conference and consent or else it will fall apart. Once it falls apart the inevitable alternative is re-armament and war. The argument that the Pacific Concert, if it is to survive, must be- come an agency of beneficial regional international legislation does not prophesy that it will. Perhaps the Washington Conference may prefer a false and inadequate "•settlement" to the promotion of an understanding by means of future consultation. Perhaps if it does set up a Concert, the Concert will degenerate into a monotonous repetition of meaningless sounds or will finally dissolve into an outrageous discord. In these matters statesmanship is taking long chances with slippery cards. It is important not to expect the impossible. But it is still more important to expect and to demand all that is possible, and to understand what your demand means. American public opinion is demanding the limita- tion of armaments as a long stride down the road to appeasement. It does well to demand a limitation of armaments, b'ut if the governmen'ts limit armaments without providing a political as well as a moral equiva- lent for larmies and navies and wars, the road to peace through dis- armament will prove to be a blind alley. The only possible political substitute for armies and navies and wars is organized international conference. It is a dubious and clumsy substitute, but it is the best there is, and if it is not better than it is, that is not entirely the fault either of the method of conference or the good faith of the conferees. It is far more the fault of public opinion which asks politicians to provide a political substitute for war without itself providing a moral substitute. 7. THi; TEST OF SUCCESS In 'Starting to place an estimate on the success of the Conference, people should beware of subjecting it to a rigid and a narrow test. It meets for the purpose of limiting armaments, and unless it succeeds in limiting naval armaments, it will most egregiously fail. Yet the amount of money it saves in naval expenditure will not constitute a dependable test of its -success. It meets for the purpose of reaching an agreement about the political and economic problems of the Far East. Yet the completeness and definiteness of its agreement about riod to date due. Renewed books are subjea to immediate recaU. . a\zr^ 2 3 -ftETyWAiOJQ- .^m-v&i2^ R^^dM-J^^^--^^^^^^^^^-^ "larcisr ^^* ■ ^'^^ UUN 4l982l il. 1V1AY21198 7 liyiofliscMAY b I^Sr General Library . LD21A-60m-8,'70 University of Califonua ^«f-,,-. (N88378l0)476— A-32 Berkeley 1932 ffl|^^'^>f vi:v^^;*^r^v;, ■ ^ U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES B0Q3D2dt>32 y 478419 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY Illiill'ii nliiiHI" ! iiil "' L^d,^ ,mo^ ^ { P<'..nd of ^ the d hi«& or ev la^o .Tdis*^' Cof ytftCS C Cortf^' ' but '" V of l''»^'^ ■ - ''"^'^ - ^'^ as.'""""!.!.!.. -• ^ Trttf7 thU r-,tHe