NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 49, 21 November 1921, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

America, it is reported to-day, wants no formal treaty embodying whatever decisions may be arrived at on the disarmament and Pacific questions, but merely a general agreement. This will do away with the popular objection in the United States to foreign treaties, and at the same time will avoid the necessity of securing a two-thirds majority in thle Senate to ratify any treaty made, as is 'required under the Constitution. From the American viewpoint it is possibly the best way, but it is questionable whether Britain and Japan will find a mere informal understanding on these most important matters entirely satisfactory. The naval reduction plan put forward by the United States has a suggested term of ten years. Every fourth year there is a Residential election in the United States, and American foreign policy has always had a notorious discontinuity, particularly when the new President is of a different political party from the old. The American Ambassador in Britain recently explained for the benefit of the Empire that we must always bear in mind, for instance, that President Harding would not touch President Wilson’s League of Nations scheme with a forty-foot pole. Under, an informal arrangement on disarmament there is no guarantee that the Democrats if returned to power in the United States three years hence would feel themselves any more bound by it than President Harding feels himself bound by President Wilson’s signature in pride of place on the Treaty of Versailles. The plain fact is that under the American Constitution no agreement with a foreign nation is binding and valid unless approved by a two-thirds majority in the Senate, and apparently ii is suggested that whatever other nations may do the United States will bind itself irrevocably to nothing at the Washington Conference. « If. •' •- Mr. Gandhi seems to bo genuinely disturbed by the rioting in which his non-co-operators have indulged in in Bombay on the occasion of ihe visit- of the Prince of Wales. Mr. Gandhi litis preached to the population of India that they should bring about the' downfall of the British Government of India entirely by pacific methods—by refusing to serve in any governmental post, in the schools, the police force, or ihe Army, by withdrawing children from the Government schools, by the boycott of British goods, and in innumerable other such ways. He has explained on numerous occasions that ho is most resolutely opposed to anything in the nature of violence. No doubt this is so,; but although Mr. Gandhi may make these nice distinctions it is quite certain that the mass of his followers will never maintain them for long. The dilemma in' which Mr. Gandhi finds himself in consequence of the rioting at Bombay gives an insight into the unpractical idealism of His character. Ii is that same idealism that has enabled him to make so wide an appeal in India, /and his hold on the crowd has drawn to him a variety of persons with totally different ends from his own—such as t'he Ali brothers — all intent on profiting with their diverse causes in any upheaval of fanaticism that the Gandhi crusade may evoke. It has been explained that the Government of India has considered that the best way to cure the Giandhi epidemic was to let it run its course. If Mr. Gandhi himself is becoming disillusioned, the action of the Government will be justified by the event, for without him the movement must speedily collapse.

A graphic idea of the extent to which British export trade had fallen away prior to the movement of recovery which has been in evidence since the middle of this year is given in comparative statistics of the volume of American and United Kingdom exports published in the September issue of the monthly review of the London Joint City and Midland Bank. Neither country, in its trade returns, records the actual tonnage of commodities exported and imported, and the banking journal has compiled the figures which follow from other official sources. They are based on the index of 100. for 1913:-

volume of exports. American p.c. British p.c. Year 1919 U 8.6 518 March quarter, 1920 113.5 71.3 June quarter, 1920 103.4 73.5 Sept, quarter, 1920 92.4 73.6 Dec. quarter, 1920 121.2 65.4 Year 1920 107.7 70.9 March quarter, 1921 103.4 53.5 June quarter, 1921 100.4 38.4 The volume of British trade for the Juno quarter this year was, of course, adversely affected by the coal strike, and the September and December quarters will no doubt show a substantial improvement, Obviously, however, there is a tremendous amount of leeway to be made up from tho low point reached in June.

While tire Washington Conference is concerned primarily with (he limitation of naval armaments and with international relationships bearing directly on that problem, it will render a vital service to humanity if it finds some means of satisfying the French demand which was ably stated by M. Briand in a speech reported to-day. European peace manifestly will rest on an insecure foundation so long as France feels constrained to maintain a large army in the interests of her national security; and at the same time the broad merits of tho case, as they are presented by the French Premier, have been recognised and admitted by independent observers. For instance, the. Committee of the United States Chamber of Commerce, which visited Continental Europe this year, made the following report on the subject, “It is essential to Germany, in her own interests, that some plan shall be devised by which France and the other European countries shall be given an assurance of security in future. Some of tho most important leaders in Germany frankly declare thgt France should

have such an assurance. They were unable to suggest any acceptable guarantee which Germany 'herself could offer, hut they expressed the hope that the other countries might soon agree upon somo method of meeting the situation. The German leaders believe that otherwise they must live and work for years in a state of constant friction with Franco and the over-present possibility of French armies occupying more territory whenever difficulties arise.” The great obstacle to an international guarantee which would safeguard France and other European countries is, of course, America’s rooted aversion to "entangling alliances.” This was the factor which wrecked the tripartite agreement under which Britain and the United States were to assist France if she became the object of an unprovoked attack by Germany. Presumably America is as little inclined as she was in 1919 to enter into alliances, but it is just possible that the Washington Conference may devise a form of international guarantee in which she would consent to participate.

To avoid difficulties with the contractors, and possible peedless expense, Britain has ceased work on her new battleships. Coincidently with this announcement comes the news of the launching of a new United States battleships the West Virginia, and of a Japanese one, the Kjga. Conference or no conference, it is Britain which has been doing the actual disarmament by the scrapping of hundreds of vessels and great reductions in personnel. Apart altogether from the demobilisation of the Naval Reservists, some 1100 officers of the Royal Navy itself have been retired since the armistice, parents of naval cadets have been offered £3OO if they will withdraw their sons from the training colleges, and a message at the end of last week announced the prospective retirement, of over six hundred more officers. An army can be improvised in an emergency, but this is not the case with a navy, either in its equipment or personnel. War vessels are now huge boxes of the most complicated machinery, and it is upon the officers and men with their long .-.nd highly-special-ised training that efficiency of the fleet depends. In view of the interdependence of the Empire on naval security, Britain is taking a great risk in dispersing so much of this personnel into other walks of life. It is a real earnest of her sincerity at Washington.