BOOKS OF THE DAY
Mr. Sumner We.les and the World
The Time kr Decision. By Sumner Welles. (Hamish Hamilton. 15s.)
FEW men can write on world affairs with more authority than Mr. Sumner Welles. A New Yorker of wide knowledge, education and experience, a man of singular attractiveness, a linguist, he was the dominant figure in the State Department from 1933 to 1943. At the technical and permanent levels, at any rate, Mr. Sumner Welles is not merely as the witty French saying goes "a man who has had a brilliant future." He is 52. We shall hear of him again. The Time for Decision is addressed primarily to the people of the United States. It is a lucid statement of the events which led from the first World War to the second, and of the ways whereby the Author believes the second World War might be prevented from leading to a third. The lion-hunter will go first to the sections of the book such as Chapter III in which Mr. Welles describes his visits to Mussolini, Hitler and other protagonists of the world tragedy he, as President Roosevelt's emissary, tried to avert. But the key to the excellence, and perhaps to the shortcomings, of his book is to be sought in less spectacular chapters, such as his descrip- tion of The Good Neighbour Policy (V), The Japanese Threat (VII) and The Constructive Power of the U.S.S.R. (VIII).
In these chapters we meet a mind which is direct and clear ; capable, therefore, of stating things barely, witiout undue regard for conventional taboos or " official " inhibitions. In his criticism of the "hectoring and domineering" era of American policy within the Monroe Doctrine Area, for instance, the author is singularly out- spoken and courageous, and his objectivity is the more welcome coming from a man bred in the conventional spheres of officialdom. Much the same can be said of his liberal and friendly treatment of Russian affairs.
To be sure there are limitations. Mr. Welles views the new version of the Monroe Doctrine, as smoothed over by President Roosevelt and by himself, with the enthusiastic eye of a loving parent. No well-informed Spanish-American will grudge the great democratic President and his diplomatic adviser the praise they deserve for the happy evolution they ha vg brought about in inter- American politics ; but anyone thoroughly familiar with Spanish- American affairs could blue-pencil not a few of Mr. Welles' state- ments on the actual meaning and working of the Monroe Doctrine ; nor are his portraits of Spanish-American men as objective as the rest of his book. At times it seems as if this most intelligent states- man was deliberately refraining from delving under mere politics down to the roots of collective life which, of course, are not political. The matter is the more important for its bearing on Mr. Welles' proposals for peace. Chapter IX is entitled "The German Menace can be ended." It is, in my opinion, the weakest chapter, and the one in which the merely political character of this otherwise excellent book shows at its worst. Mr. Welles suggests a division of Germany into three
separate States ; one- made up Of the Rhineland, the Saar, Baden, Wurtemburg and Bavaria ; another one round Hanover and West- phalia in the North-West ; and the third in the East round Prussia and Silesia. All such schemes overlook the fact that partition would add to the danger it seeks to remove, both by strengthening the sense of union in the Germans and by fostering a baseless feeling of safety in the rest of Europe.
Mr. Welles' proposals for a world organisation are more use`ul. He wisely advocates a Provisional United Nations Exectitive Council • and he suggests a form of membership which deserves study : four members designated by each of the four Great Powers (he does not mention France) and chosen by the European States ; two by the American States • one by the Far Eastern States • one by a group of States in the Near and Middle East and in Africa; and one by the Dotninions. The members so chosen. would repre- sent the interests of the region as a whole. Mr. Welles weakens this most interesting proposal by suggesting that the big Powers should also cast their vote in. the election of the members for their region—an exorbitant privilege somewhat surprising in so staunch an advocate of the small nations.
Otherwise his plan of world organisation does not differ essen- -daily from that of Dumbarton Oaks. His thought seems to oscillate between recognition of the dangers of zoning the world, in fact, partitioning it into spheres of influence, and a tendency to consider precisely such a partition as the only realistic solution of. the problem a security. He aptly quotes Wilson's third point: "No alliance within any League of Nations," and the warning contained in his oft-quoted words: "There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power ; not organised rivalries, but an organised common peace ; all nations henceforth (must) avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into competitions of power." But as a defence against "the dangers envisaged by President Wilson in these warnings," all Mr. Welles offers us is his belief that these dangers "will exist only if the 'nations of the world seek to employ regional systems as offensive or defensive alliances, or as political or economic "spheres of influence to be exploited for the individual ends of the Great Powers dominant in each region."
This is holy water for earthquakes. It explains that Mr. Welles should also recall the Dumbarton Oaks draft in the exaggerated importance he seems to bestow on security. It is idle to provide so carefully for a breach of the peace between small Powers while leaving necessarily unprovided-for such things As the swallowing of a small Power by a big one or a break between the big Powers— both in fact insoluble problems if approached by the way of machinery. Security can never be secured by military means. It - must flow from harmonious policy, which can only be obtained if the Great Powers put all their cards on the table—a table round which the small Powers are sitting.
SALVADOR DE MADARIAGA.
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