FROM FEBRUARY 4 TO MARCH 3
UNITED STATES AND EUROPE
Conference on World Court.—Prior to his departure for Europe as delegate to the conference of jurists at Geneva for consideration of changes in the League statute creating the Permanent Court of International Justice, Mr. Elihu Root made a brief visit to Washington, during which he conferred with President Coolidge and with members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. To the influence of this visit was generally attributed the note subsequently sent by Secretary Kellogg on February 19 to all the member nations of the Court. This note invited the powers to a renewed effort to overcome their objections to the Fifth Reservation made by the United States in her offer to join the Court. It will be recalled that this reservation, restricting advisory opinions from the Court to the League Council in matters where the United States “has or claims an interest,” has been the only stumbling block preventing acceptance of the American proposals. Secretary Kellogg’s note, after discussing the point, remarked that agreement appeared possible, since there seemed to be “but little difference” of opinion regarding the substance of the rights and interests involved.
Mr. Root arrived at Geneva on March 1, just before the meeting there of the League Council. It was reported that several of the jurists in attendance at the conference, set to meet on March xi, would advocate abandonment altogether of the Council’s past policy of calling on the Court for advisory opinions. Such a course would at once remove the obstacles to American entry. The Court has already refused, in the Carelia dispute between Russia and Finland, to give an advisory opinion to the Council when one nation involved was not an adherent of the Court.
Anti-War Treaty Ratifications.—On March 2, just at the close of the Coolidge administration, eleven of the sixteen original signatories of the Kellogg-Briand AntiWar Treaty deposited their ratifications at the State Department in Washington. At that time the ratifications necessary to put the Treaty into effect were lacking from only four countries: Poland, whose ratification papers were on the way by special messenger; France, where the treaty had been approved by the Chamber but was awaiting action by the Senate; Japan, which had difficulty over the phrasing of the treaty which makes renunciation “by the peoples” and not by the Emperor; and Belgium, from whom ratification was expected within two or three days.
Cruiser Bill Passed.—The Cruiser Bill, providing for the construction of fifteen light cruisers, five to be begun in each of the three years ending June 30, 1929, 1930, and 1931, and one aircraft carrier to be undertaken before June 30, 1930, passed the Senate on February 5 by a vote of 68 to 12 and was signed by the President on February 13. The bill contained Senator Borah’s amendment on freedom of the seas, which as modified by Senator Reed finally read as follows: “First, that the Congress favors a treaty or treaties with all the principal maritime nations regulating the conduct of belligerents and neutrals in war at sea, including the inviolability of private property thereon. Second, that such treaties be negotiated, if practically possible, prior to the meeting of the Conference for Limitation of Armaments in 1931.”
Arms Export Proposals.—Following the ratification of the Kellogg Peace Treaty and the approval of the Cruiser Bill, great interest was shown, both in the United States and abroad, in the revival of Senator Capper’s proposal to give the President power to prohibit export of munitions to any country violating the Kellogg Treaty. Senator Capper’s resolution was referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee, and will not come up before the regular session next December, if at all. Chairman Porter of the House Foreign Affairs Committee proposed a somewhat similar resolution in the House, which would give the President authority to stop shipment of munitions to “any country where conditions of domestic violence or of international violence are threatened.” These proposals were welcomed abroad in the belief that they would put the United States in line with the League of Nations by providing for positive action against an offending nation. Speaking of the Capper Resolution, President Coolidge thought it “went too far.” Though no doubt a president’s discretion could be trusted, it is evident that restrictions such as proposed might easily involve the United States in what would amount to practically hostile action in a conflict where this country was not directly concerned.
New British Proposals Rumored.— Much curiosity was excited by a statement of the British Ambassador, Sir Esme Howard on February 15 that the passing of the Cruiser Bill cleared the ground so that new proposals for naval limitation might be made by England without the appearance of an effort to interfere with the present American building program. He thought there was “every reason to believe that a further effort would be made before long,” though it might be delayed until after the English elections this summer. After Sir Esme’s statement, Foreign Minister Chamberlain hastened to announce that the situation was “in no way changed,” but the British press continued to advocate new efforts toward a settlement, based on broader lines than those of strict mathematical parity.
Naval Power and Neutral Trade.— In the Saturday Review of Literature of February 16, Mr. Henry Kittridge Norton (author of Simsadus) comments interestingly on two recent books, A Survey of American Foreign Relations (1928), edited by Charles P. Howland and published for the Council of Foreign Relations by the Yale Press, and Foreign Relations of the United States (1915), Supplement, Government Printing Office, 1928. Of the five sections into which the first volume is divided, the most interesting, according to Mr. Norton, is the one written by Arthur Bullard on the post-war movement toward limitation of armament. On this he comments as follows:
Mr. Bullard has given us an extremely able presentation of the real issue between England and the United States on the question of naval parity. British opinion on this matter has so far been shaped by the Admiralty. The Admiralty’s conception of the British navy is that of an instrument which under their direction can control the seas in time of war. This control has two purposes. First, to insure the uninterrupted supply of foodstuffs and raw materials to Great Britain in time of war, and second to interrupt the supplies of such material to Britain’s enemies. This control is exercised in two ways. First, by the destruction of the hostile fleet, and second by the blockade of hostile ports.
The conflict of interest between the United States and Great Britain centers round the use of the blockade. America has for the most part been a neutral in European conflicts. She has desired to trade with both parties. So long as the British navy controlled the seas, she has been able to trade with Great Britain. She has not been able to trade with Britain’s enemies except on terms fixed by the British navy. In the old sailing-ship days munitions of war were considered contraband and certain supplies including foodstuffs were contraband if they were destined for the use of the armed forces of a belligerent. In other goods neutrals were supposed to have the right to trade with either belligerent without interference from their armed forces. In modern warfare, fought by nations in arms, any sort of supplies helps to stiffen the resistance of the nation receiving it. When that nation happens to be at war with Great Britain, and the British navy controls the seas, it requires only an Order in Council dictated by the Admiralty to extend the law of contraband to exclude practically all commerce with the enemies of Great Britain.
There are but two possible checks upon the arbitrary exercise of such power to control the seas. One is international law. This for the present, so far as the question of the freedom of the seas is concerned, is practically non-existent. The other check is a neutral navy sufficiently powerful so that the British Admiralty would prefer to sacrifice some of the advantages of its sea power rather than bring this neutral navy into the contest against it.
If those of a pacifist turn of mind are inclined to think that Mr. Bullard is merely supposing fictitious difficulties and imagining chimeras, they might well turn to the second volume under review and read of what actually happened during the year 1915 when we were neutrals and the British and the Germans were locked in a death struggle for the control of the sea. It was the British who first violated American rights as those rights are defined by American interpretations of international law. The British navy took what seemed to us utterly unwarranted liberty with our commerce, and the volume is rich in material for the consideration of those who belittle the differences between England and America. Our navy at the beginning of the War was not overly powerful, not sufficiently powerful, in fact, to deter the British Government from deciding to give its own navy a free hand in suppressing any trade which might in any way redound to Germany’s advantage.
Then came the submarine campaign. Germany claimed it was by way of “reprisal” against Britain for her violations of international law. But the United States, a neutral, suffered from the reprisals in exactly the same way that Britain, the enemy, suffered. Furthermore, the British had interfered only with American ships and cargoes. The form of the German campaign resulted in the sacrifice of American lives. Its violation of international law, even though there was some justification for the “reprisal” claim, aroused the resentment against Germany in this country which finally took us into the War on the side of the Allies. It is impossible to say how history would have been changed if we had had in 1915 a navy such as we were acquiring when the Washington Conference was called.
Anglo-American Relations.—The Saturday Review of Literature, in its issues from January 26 to February 16, carried a highly valuable series of articles on the subject “England and America,” discussing from various angles the problem of future relations between the two countries, especially in their relation to naval power and commerce. The first articles, contributed by Sir Philip Kerr, former private secretary to Premier Lloyd George, expressed a fairly hopeful opinion that the two nations could work out harmoniously the great problems of international trade rivalry facing the world in the future. Another article by Mr. Walter Lippmahn, an editor of the New York World, put forth the general idea that naval equality, as between the two countries and on the basis of something like their present strength, offered the best basis for future peace. A subsequent letter contributed by the military critic and historian F. H. Simonds was more pessimistic, pointing out the fundamental and scarcely reconcilable divergence of policies between the two countries as regards control of trade in war time. An extract from Mr. Kerr’s article of February 2 is given below:
It is sometimes said that an irrepressible conflict must arise between Great Britain and the United States and other leading economic powers, each struggling for the raw material supplies or for the lion’s share of the markets of the world. There will be competition and friction, no doubt, but there need be no irrepressible conflict if wisdom governs their policies. The world is on the verge of an expansion of production and exchange hitherto undreamed of—an expansion which will keep all the industrial nations fully employed on a rising standard of living for an indefinite period, if the leading nations can prevent war among themselves. The equipment with power and machines of the 1,200,000,000 of the human race now mainly dependent on human and animal energy will give them a producing and therefore a consuming capacity which will not only immensely heighten their own standard of living, but create a world market immeasurably greater than any yet conceived. If the industrial nations, following the intelligent capitalism of the modern era, recognize that the key to their own problems is not internecine competition for a limited market, but the intelligent expansion of the world market through judicious investment and good wages, and the rationalizing of competition within it, no irrepressible conflicts need arise
International relations in economic affairs for the next few years seem likely to be dominated by the controversy between those who believe in the nationalist or protectionist and subsidizing policy and those who see far greater prosperity for everybody in international cooperation for the all round reduction of tariffs, subsidies, and other restrictions to normal commercial intercourse all over the globe.
The second group of economic problems goes deeper. The equipment of the whole world with machinery will bring into being international, financial, and business organizations more powerful than many pre-war governments, and these international organizations will be entirely beyond the control of any government or people. The greater proportion of this colossal wealth will remain in relatively few hands, for, though poverty is disappearing, the proportion of wealth in the hands of the rich and the relatively poor seems to remain fairly constant. Moreover, these gigantic trusts and combinations are not only beyond the control of governments but also of the shareholders who draw dividends from them. The power over finance and industry today is almost as absolute and as autocratic as was the power over political government in the days when feudal barons and hereditary kings were preparing the ground for the modern Parliamentary states.
UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA
Mexican President Attacked.—An unsuccessful attempt was made on the life of President Emilo Portes Gil of Mexico when a train on which he was traveling was dynamited on the morning of February 10. Although two coaches were derailed, that in which the president was traveling was uninjured. The attack took place on the day following the execution of President-Elect Obregon’s assassin, Toral.
Tacna-Arica Settlement.—Reports from both Chili and Peru in the latter part of February indicated real progress toward settlement of the Tacna-Arica problem by means of direct negotiations between the two nations. The proposed settlement, it is stated, will divide the two provinces, giving Tacna to Peru and Arica to Chili. The railway from the port of Arica to Bolivia will lie just within Chilean territory.
Nicaragua Canal Survey.—The Edge Resolution providing for a survey of the interoceanic canal route through Nicaragua passed the Senate on February 25 and was later approved by the House and signed by President Coolidge. It provides for an initial appropriation of $150,000 and further appropriations as necessary. The resolution calls also for investigation of the possibility of enlarging the Panama Canal and for consideration of “any other practicable route between the Atlantic and the Pacific.”
REPARATIONS CONFERENCE
Progress Made.—The first meeting of the expert committee of representatives of the seven nations concerned in the problem of German reparations met at Paris on February 11. As anticipated, Mr. Owen D. Young of the American delegation was made chairman. During the first week or two the time of the conference was chiefly spent in listening to a detailed account of conditions in Germany, by the chief of the German delegation, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank, whose efforts were bent on refuting the statement of Mr. Gilbert’s report that Germany could easily pay the standard annuity of $600,000,000 called for under the Dawes Plan. The German delegate took especial pains to point out that the recent large American loans to Germany, which have facilitated previous reparations payments, constitute an additional burden on the country, and an additional argument against making future payments beyond her ability to bear. On February 27 a subcommittee composed of Herr Schacht and Sir Josiah Stamp of the British delegation presented a preliminary report bearing on the question whether the “transfer clause,” allowing Germany a certain option in payments if such transfer would injure German credit, should be retained in future arrangements. Although not made public, this report was said to recommend that while about 75 per cent of the payments each year should be fixed, the transfer of the remainder should be subject to the decision of an international body of financial experts. Committees were appointed to consider the amount of both fixed and varying payments, and the application of the transfer clause to payments in kind. This last committee was headed by Mr. T. N. Perkins, one of the American alternate delegates, who arrived at Paris on February 23.
Despite the difficulties of the problem, very optimistic opinions were expressed by members of the conference to the effect that definite results would be reached by the committee within five or six weeks’ time.
ITALO-PAPAL TREATY
Concordat Signed.—The treaty between Italy and the Vatican renewing diplomatic relations and restoring the temporal sovereignty of the Pope was signed at the Lateran Palace in Rome on Sunday, February 18, by the papal Foreign Secretary, Cardinal Gasparri, and by Premier Mussolini. Of chief interest in the treaty is the recognition of the sovereignty of the Holy See within the small area of the “City of the Vatican,” now a neutralized state; the renewal of cordial relations between the Pope and the Italian government; and the provisions for modification of the Italian civil law in matters of marriage, divorce, etc., so as to bring it into harmony with canon law. For injuries incurred in 1870 and later, the Italian government will pay 200,000,000 lire in cash and bonds (about $105,000,000) to the papal treasury.
SOVIET REPUBLIC AND NORTHERN EUROPE
Baltic Peace Protocol.—The signing of a peace protocol on February 9 by the Soviet Republic, Poland, Latvia, Esthonia, and Rumania, was varyingly described, in the Russian press as a “proof to the world of Soviet pacifism,” and in the foreign press as “a crowning piece of Red hypocrisy.” The pact put into effect at once among the four signatories the provisions of the Kellogg Anti-War Treaty, without delay for ratification by other powers. Of especial interest was the presence of the Rumanian delegate, the first to appear in Moscow since the war. Rumanian adherence to the agreement was said to have been secured only by a definite renunciation on the part of the Soviets of all claims on Bessarabia. Possibly this was accomplished by secret agreement, for at the signing of the peace protocol the Soviet delegate declared the Bessarabian question “not finally settled.”
Expulsion of Trotzky.—After much mystery as to the whereabouts of Leon Trotzky, who since January had been reported expelled from the Soviet Republic, it was finally ascertained that he had reached Constantinople, February 12, from Russian Turkestan aboard the Soviet steamer Illitch, and was living at the Soviet consulate under a strong guard. Subsequently the German government received and rejected an application from Trotzky to take up temporary residence in Germany. In the New York Times of February 27-March 1 appeared an account by the Russian minority leader of his struggle with Stalin and final expulsion from the country. Stalin, as might be expected, was characterized by Trotzky as a politician of mediocre ability and shifting policy.
Oil Agreement Signed.—The signing in London on February 27 of a three-year agreement between the Soviet oil control and the leading British and American oil companies (Anglo-Persian, Royal Dutch Shell, and Anglo-American) for resumption of normal trading relations was regarded as removing the chief single obstacle that has hindered a commercial understanding between Russia and the western powers. It also marked the end of long-standing hostility between Sir Henry Deterding of the Royal Dutch Shell and the Soviet authorities. The agreement reached does not touch the question of compensation to foreign owners for their nationalized oil property.
FAR EAST
Tariff Treaty Ratified.—The tariff autonomy treaty signed by representatives of the United States and the Chinese Nationalists last August was ratified by the United States Senate on February 11. Ratification, however, was not regarded by the Nationalists as essential to putting into effect their new tariff rates, which went into force on February X.
Sino-Japanese Conferences.—Discussions between China and Japan over the Tsinan-fu incident and other differences followed during February their characteristically Oriental course. Substantial agreement was announced February 5, followed three days later by a statement that negotiations were again at a standstill owing to refusal of the Nationalists to waive claims for pecuniary damages resulting from the conflict at Tsinan. Meantime the disturbed conditions in Shantung strengthened Japan’s justification for retaining her military forces in the province.
Shantung Uprising.—Considerable fighting occurred in northeastern Shantung during the latter part of February between Nationalist troops and followers of the former Shantung war-lord Chang Tsung- chang. Japan was accused of assisting Chang’s return from Dairen to Shantung and of aiding him in launching his rebellion. Of even more serious menace to the stability of the new Nationalist government was the presence in western Shantung of a large army under Marshal Feng Yu-hsiang, as well as threats of rebellion among radical leaders in Honan province and at Hang-kow.