Outlawing War
MR KELLOGG and M. Briand are getting continu- ally nearer together in their discussions about the outlawry of war. In. this odd world it often happens that the desired end is reached by a road which few people had thought of following, while the direct and obvious paths are found to he filled with lions or barred by un- scalable walls. The communications between Washington and Paris are a case in point..
When it was seen that Mr. Kellogg aimed at an ideal declaration which virtually meant the forswearing of war in all forms and for all purposes, most people shrugged their shoulders and said, " Nothing can come of that ! " Now, however, all nations are beginning to pay attention to the negotiations and to think that very likely some- thing will come of them after all. The direct and obvious path of disarmament as mapped out by the League of Nations may not be so serviceable in the immediate future as the road, overgrown with jungle though it is, which is being cleared for themselves and other nations by France and the United States.
For our part, thinking as we do that it is of cardinal importance that the United States and Britain should act together, we always desired that Mr. Kellogg's idealism should be taken very seriously. The American people are like ourselves in this, that they can be led but not driven. The great thing is to make a start in their Company. If they are convinced that our objects are theirs they will not be found unaccommodating. Even if Mr. Kellogg had clung to his very vague declaration against war in general we should have thought it worth while for the British Government to join with Washington in issuing such a declaration to the world. Both nations would thereby have been pinned to a state of .mind— to a general aspiration which might have been psycho- logically invaluable.
We admit, however, that it would hardly have been possible for M. Briand to take that line. The obligations Of France to the League might indeed have been recon- cikd quickly enough with what Mr. Kellogg proposed, but France has understandings with several Powers 1which might lead _her, however reluctantly, into war— understandings which, though not inspired by the League, come within its cognizance. There was the difficulty.
M. Briand has argued his case precisely and logically in the light of the facts. Mr. Kellogg, so far from being estranged by this procedure and waving M. Briand aside as a half-hearted person who was merely making excuses, has admitted the force of a great deal of what M. Briand has been saying.
- Certainly the' Franco-American proposals in their latest form leave many loopholes for war. But the significance of the whole matter is that if they should be accepted America (without, of course, being any nearer to membership of the League) would necessarily enter into a closer co-operation with the League. That would be an immense convenience to everybody. Let us see how this situation has developed. Last June M. Briand proposed a pact exclusively between France and the United States renouncing war " as an instrument of policy." Mr. Kellogg then said that such a pact ought not to be confined to two Powers, but should be open to the whole world. M. Briand reflected for a time upon the possible reactions of a multilateral pact of this kind upon French obligations to the League and elsewhere, and then suggested that the difficulties might be solved by confining the repudiation to wars of aggression.
It is notoriously difficult to define wars of aggression, and Britain and other Powers have shrunk from the task if only because they feared that even the best defini- tion might be twisted and used by an aggressive Power to put itself nominally in the right. Members of Congress in America have been fertile in producing definitions of aggression which they think would be watertight, but M. Briand has not been convinced.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kellogg has been gradually yielding. He has distinctly receded from the position he occupied when he condemned the introduction of the qualifying word " aggression " into a general declaration outlawing war. Last Saturday M. Briand's latest Note was delivered in Washington, and it is of good omen that its stipulations have not been received unfavourably.
M. Briand lays it down : (1) that the pact must be universal ; (2) that in the event of any Power violating the pact all the other signatories must be released from their pledges to the violator ; (8) that the renunciation of war does not deprive any signatory of the " right of legitimate defence " ; (4) that the pact shall not affect existing obligations such as the Covenant, the Locarno Treaties and guarantees of neutrality ; (5) that the pact is not to come into force until it has been universally accepted unless the Powers which have already signed agree to ignore abstentions.
It may be said that all these reservations are nearly as stultifying as the phrases in the old-fashioned Arbitration Treaties which exclude from arbitration questions of honour and of vital interest—in other words, everything which you may desire to exclude. On paper theobjection may seem just, but we are strongly of the opinion that it is important to get something done. One thing, even a small thing, would lead to another ; and as we have said, a closer co-operation with the United States would at least be inaugurated.
After all, it is not a small thing, but a great thing, that nations should put their names to any declaration proscribing war. Only a few years ago the conventional treatise on military subjects used to dignify war by defining it as "an instrument of policy." That definition at least had a Baconian ring, and was generally accepted. Surely it is a notable advance to come within sight of a universal declaration which deprives such a definition of respectability.
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