WORLD AFFAIRS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 228, 26 September 1929, Page 6

WORLD AFFAIRS.

. A WEEKLY REVIEW. (By BYSTANDER.) So the famous "optional clause" in the protocol of the Court of International Justice has been signed at last, and not by Britain only, but by several of the Dominions, including New Zealand. Admittedly, this decision to refer all disputes with other nations to the Court, and to accept its judgment thereon, is very much in the nature of an experiment which may have serious consequences. For no one yet knows exactly how the Court will interpret its functions, and no one can assert beforehand that the arbitrators or judges who hear appeals will always b© wellinformed and unprejudiced in regard to the matters in dispute. Certainly it is a great step toward the achievement of world peace that so many nations should be prepared to bind themselves to substitute arbitration for war. But this had been done on a large scale long before 1914, and the process might have gone on continuously without calling in either the League of Nations or a Court of International Justice to assist it. It is one thing to appeal to arbitration in such matters, but quite another to bind oneself absolutely to accept arbitration from a Court whoso constitution, scope and juristic principles are all at present equally unknown.

A Threatening Omen. Naturally the Americans have come in for a good deal of adverse criticism for refusing to accept unconditionally the jurisdiction of the International Court, just as they have been freely denounced for holding aloof from the League of Nations. What is really the matter with American policy is that it is based more fully and frankly than most other foreign policies on what the moralists describe as "enlightened self-interest." The Root formula which summarises the terms on which the Americans are prepared to sign this debatable clause neutralises the value of their acceptance altogether. But I think that they are wise in insisting oh their right to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the Court whenever they think necessary. It must be remembered that, in the form in which New Zealand has accepted the optional Clause, we agree to its terms for ten years only. But even this reservation may not be adequate, for a great deal may happen to affect our interests in far less time. A 6 Professor J. E. Morgan, the great constitutional lawyer, has already pointed out, the question of alien immigration, which is of such vital concern to New Zealand, Australia and Canada, may be regarded by the International Court as coming within its jurisdiction. Japan, for obvious reasons, has already tried to induce the League of Nations to exclude immigration from the limits of domestic policy, and it is a most significant fact that, just when Britain and the Dominions accepted the optional clause, C4ermany, which has no direct interest in alien immigration, made a suggestion on the same lines as Japan. I do not believe in pessimism, but I cannot say that I regard the acceptance of the optional clause by Britain and the Empire with unmixed satisfaction. Is it Peace? In spite of a great deal of desultory fighting along the Manchurian frontier, there does not seem to be much present danger of an actual war in the Far East. If no other consideration deters them, both China and Russia are too much afraid of Japan to risk anything like war on a large scale. But it does seem surprising that, though China is a member of the League of Nations, and j both Russia and China have signed the Ivellogg Pact, neither Power seems to have treated seriously its obligation to maintain the peace of the world. A few weeks ago a Chinese delegate was Chairman of the Council of the League of Nations. A few months ago a Soviet ! envoy at Geneva made an impassioned plea for universal disarmament. Not long since both Russia and China accepted with every demonstration of sincerity the agreement suggested by France and improved by the United States for "the outlawry of war." To-day not only are Russians and Chinese fighting each other, but neither government seems to have made any serious attempt to bring the facts in disputo under the notice of the League or the signatories to the Kellogg Pact. It is a curious situation, and it certainly suggests that so far no one has yet taken these international agreements for the avoidance of war quite literally and seriously.

Lost England. "One of the largest landslides experienced '.n the coast of Norfolk in recent times" was reported this week. Near Cromer, one of the well-known seaside resorts on the East Coast, a cliff fell headlong into the sea, displacing many thousands of tons of earth. As a matter of fact, this sort of thing has been happening all round the coast of England from time immemorial. So far as Cromer is concerned, visitors generally have pointed out to them a solitary rock far out to sea as the "old Cromer Church that used to be in the middle of the town." In 1799 and 1825 heavy falls of earth took place along the sea front, and between 1838 and 1861 the Ordnance Survey showed that the cliff-line was receding at the rate of 14ft a year. North of Cromer, historical records show that there once stood the flourishing town of Shipden, and the villages of Wliimpwell, Overstrand and Eccles, which have now all been submerged under the North Sea. The All-devouring Sea. But the ravages of ocean here are trivial compared with what the waves have done to the Suffolk coastline further south. "The ruins of a solitary' church of largo dimensions toppling on the edge of the cliff" are all that is left of the ancient city of Dunwich, "surrounded with a stone wall and brazen gates." Dunwich once boasted 52 churches and religious houses, a king's palace, a bishop's seat, a mayor's mansion, and a mint. It was a flourishing port, and south-east of the town there extended for seven miles a great forest. In the days of Henry 11. Dunwich was a greater town than Ipswich or Yarmouth or Oxford; and in the reign of Edward I. it maintained 11 warships, 16 ordinary ships, and 20 vessels trading to the North Seas. But after "a mighty storm" in 1328- the town began to collapse, and by 1540 "not a quarter of the old city was standing." So runs the tragic chronicle year by year till in the winter of 1739-40 the insatiable waves devoured practically all that was left of a once populous and wealthy city. Unwritten History. There is something sinister and tragic about these ceaseless depredations which the waves that have always been Britain's stoutest bulwark against dangers from without are constantly making upon her shores. It is true that here and there the level of the coastline has been displaced, and the foreshore has silted up till old seaports have receded far inland. But generally speaking the tendency has been the other way. From Flamborough Head and Spurn Point, down the East Coast and along the Channel, round the coast of Cornwall where "Lyonesse" lies buried between Land's End and the Scillies, up northward past Wales where the "lost Lowland Hundred" rests beneath the waves in Cardigan Bay, to the mouths of the Dee and the Mersey, where hundreds of skeletons have been revealed by the receding tide, the tale is the same. The history of "Lost England," the fields and villages, and even cities, that have disappeared for ever beneath the ever-encroaching waves, "remains unwritten •noh."