THE GUARANTEE OF THE UNITED STATES. (To THE EDITOR or
THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sio,—In the last issue of the Spectator (p. 99) I reminded your readers that by its signature to the Treaty of the Hague in 190T the United States had, in effect, guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium, and called attention to the obvious fact that nothing whatever has been said or done by the Washington Government in redemption of this guarantee. The President, in enjoining upon American citizens the duty of neutrality " in thought, speech, and action," has apparently obeyed that injunction him- self, as have also the co-signatory Powers which are now neutral. at least in so far as their Governments are concerned.
In the ease of the United States there are Constitutional obstacles to . the giving and redeeming of any international guaranty of a very serious character. They arise out of the very fabric of the Government, which is founded (as I need not tell you, Sir) upon the basis of " Constitutional limitations," on which subject Judge Cooley, of Michigan, was the author of a work of high authority both with the Bench and Bar is America. The theory is that as all political power resides in the people, their Legislatures and executive officers are limited in their action to the powers actually granted to them by this. people by means of written Constitutions. Hence it is that the President has "power to make treaties," but in the execution of the power is limited "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." So also is the Senate, in giving that advice and consent, limited by the provision that " two-thirds of the Senators present concur."
The guaranty which was supposed to have been established at the Hague in 1907 having failed of its purpose, various new methods of ensuring peace in the future aro mooted, one of them being a "League to Enforce Peace" (a contradiction In terms, I respectfully submit), which the Spectator (January 20th) has literally torn into shreds.
There is a suggestion that a nation which hereafter breaks a treaty without notice shall be treated as an outlaw by all the other nations which have entered into a compact for this purpose, and thereupon placed under the ban of non-intercourse either by commerce, exchange of mails, or otherwise—an exceedingly taking programme, which appeals very strongly to all who understand what an Englishman means by " playing the game."
If the United States is to enter into this compact, I am afraid there will have to be an amendment to the Federal Constitution, because just as the power "to declare war" is limited to Congress (the President having no such power), so also is the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations" similarly limited to it, and not to the President. Regulating commerce with foreign nations includes, I take it, the placing of an embargo on exports and imports.
Now lot we imagine what would have happened if such a compact had existed in 1914 when Germany, without notice, flagrantly violated Belgium's neutrality and deliberately broke the Treaty of the Hague. The duty would thereupon have devolved mien the United States to redeem its promise to put Germany on_ the black list, and the President would thereupon (probably) have called upon Congress to pass the necessary legislation. The debate which would have followed would have been of a character which only those wile are familiar with the intricacies of Protec- tion and Free Trade, high and low tariffs, Pacificism and "pre- paredness," and ether questions peculiar to America could have predicted. Even if the " compact " had provided that the ques- tion whether or not a treaty bad been broken should be decided by, for instance, the Hague Tribunal, the sellers of cotton, of meat, of corn, of munitions, would have refused to be bound by it, and whether or not an embargo should have been declared against Germany would in all likelihood have been decided in the negative.
For the decision of international questions, the President ought to be released from some of his /imitations by Constitutional amendment: his present powers are quite insufficieut, as the was
has fully demonstrated.—I am. Sir. &co R. It. H.
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