MOSCOW CHARTER
EVER in the long history of human conference, it may almost be said of the Moscow conversations, has so much been wed by so many to so few. To the three men who in so brief space of time have reached agreements so pregnant with ssthility the unstinted gratitude not only of every Allied but of very neutral State is due. For the purpose of the agreements not only to achieve victory for the Allies in the shortest s ssible time—that in itself, so far as it brings the cessation of ar, is of supreme concern to neutrals—but to establish peace a the earth when once the present conflict has been ended. The ere signature of documents, it is true, will not accomplish that. ut not one of the three principals at Moscow, not even Mr. Hull, as gone an inch beyond the point to which the public of his ountry will follow him, and if behind the Moscow agreements re ranged, as they indisputably are, not merely the politicians ut the peoples of Britain and America and Russia (and, as egards the most comprehensive agreement of all, China), then the use of peace is buttressed at a stroke by the three most powerful rates in the world, and so long as their pledges of co-operation re loyally carried out any aggressor of the future will recognise hat concentrated power he challenges by his lawlessness. With rapidity and a completeness beyond all reasonable expectation he foundations of the future structure of peace have been laid t Moscow.
Everything conspires to, emphasise the importance of the chievement—the time and the place hardly less than the content the actual accords. The conference has been held at a moment vhen the German armies in the east are being driven from etreat to rout by Russian forces fired with the resolve to sweep he invader from their soil, and when German morale at home s being increasingly shaken, as German production at home is ing increasingly curtailed, by the British and American Air orces. And it has been held not in London, as was at one time ontemplated, but in Moscow, which hitherto has for geographical easons been regarded as an impracticable centre for a gathering ttended by delegates from the United States. Special recognition s due to Mr. Cordell Hull for his decision, in spite of his dvanced years and precarious health, to make the long and rduous journey to the Russian capital. His sacrifice has been bundantly rewarded, for one of the greatest of the results of the oscow Conference has been the dissipation of mistrust, and the reation of unclouded confidence, between Russia and the Anglo- axon Powers. That could not have been effected in anything like e same degree by a conference in Washington or London, even f precisely the same agreements had been arrived at. Nothing ould be of more hopeful omen for the future, both the short- erm future of the war and the long-term future of the post-war eriod. How this result was achieved we do not fully know. That was due largely to the personalities of Mr. Eden and Mr. Hull annot be doubted. But there is good reason to believe that the ull explanations given of the Allied military plans and the reasons herefor made a considerable impression on Russian Ministers nd officials familiar so far only with the outlines of them. At fiy rate no room remains for allegations of Allied dissension in he military or any other sphere. So far as the Germans do allege hat they know well that they are drugging themselves with lies.
If the fact of the agreement is as important as the content of he agreement the latter none the less demands analysis and tudy. The problem of the future has been conceived, with tatestrianlike vision, in terms of concentric circles. There is, cording to the one Four-Power declaration—the association f China with this will give universal satisfaction—to be a corn- prehensive world-organisation of all peace-loving States, on the principle of their sovereign equality (a phrase calculated to curtail a great deal of unprofitable discussion); a European Advisory Commission of the three principal European Allied Powers to examine European questions as the war develops; and an Advisory Council for matters concerning Italy, on which Greece and Yugoslavia will be represented as well as Britain, America and Russia and the French Committee of National Liberation. In addition the lot of one particular country, Austria, was considered, and a pledge given of the restoration to full independence of that first victim of Hitler's ambition and brutality. There is policy as well as justice in that. The beginning of the end of the last war came through the disintegration of the disunited Austro- Hungarian Empire. The truncated Austria of today is a very different entity from Francis Joseph's Dual Monarchy, but it has manifest geographical importance, and the encouragement to its people to strike a blow for its own salvation as occasion offers may well prove one of the constituents of victory. For the rest it will be seen that Russia is associated in a new way with the political side of the war in Europe. The establishment of the European Advisory Commission in London will complete the work that the Moscow Conference has begun of destroying every vestige of Getman hope of divisions between the Allies, while the- presence of Russia on the Advisory Council on Italy should dispel, if anything can, the fears of a section of the British Press —rather than of the British public—that undue tenderness may be shown to ex-Fascists in that ex-enemy country.
In discussions so intensive as those at Moscow evidently were there must, besides the questions which were discussed and decided, have been some which were discussed and left in abeyance. The harvest of twelve days' conversations is sufficiently ample to exclude any complaint that this or that other problem was not assailed and conquered. Very wisely no agreement has been reached regarding European frontiers. Not only is that essen- tially a question for the Peace Conference, but since the importance of a frontier is strategic and economic as well as sentimental it is impossible to discuss particular frontiers in dissociation from decisions regarding security and general disarmament, and also regarding economic relations and freedom of trade. No one at Moscow is like to have underrated the importance of the economic aspects of the peace, but it would have been futile to embark on that wide problem in the circumstances prevailing ; nor is it primarily a questior. for Foreign Ministers as such. All the Powers represented at Moscow have accepted the provisions of the Atlantic Charter regarding the access of all nations, victor and vanquished alike, to the trade and raw materials of the world, and collaboration between all nations in the economic field. These generalisations must, of course, be transformed into concrete plans, and it is time that was being done. • Much thought is in fact being applied to it in Washington and Whitehall, but the associ- ation of Russia with the discussions is of manifest importance, par- ticularly in view of the special problems Russia's system of State trading may create. But this must be a continuing process. It was no part of the Moscow Conference's task even to initiate it.
At Moscow a new chapter in the war began, though the Moscow.
Press has perhaps a little overstressed the military decisions reached by a conference of Foreign Ministers. They had, how- ever, their military advisers with them, and some military plans may have been varied. It is at the same time the first chapter of the peace, or, to put it at the lowest, the preface. There has been no supersession of the Atlantic Charter, but rather an orderly progression from the general principles then laid down to their detailed application. Most important of all, the structure of the international post-war society has been wisely planned and boldly defined. It is in effect the resuscitation of the League of Nations, with, probably enough, a constitution revised in some respects, and a European Regional Council, which no doubt will find replicas in similar councils for other continents. Whether some other name than League of Nations be preferred, though there is no reason why it should be, is immaterial; the fact remains that the definition contained in the fourth point of the Quadruple Declaration, " a general international organisation, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving States and open to member- ship by all such States, large or small, for the maintenance of international peace and security," represents precisely both the structure and the purpose of the existing League. The more the various alternatives to the League have been examined in the past few years the sounder in essentials has the Covenant of the League been shown to be. The Foreign Ministers at Moscow are dearly convinced of that, and• it may be hoped that their conclusion on the point will be accepted as something outside controversy.
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