MR LANSING’S BOOK

Hokitika Guardian, 2 July 1921, Page 4

MR LANSING’S BOOK

(Sydney Review). When the captains and the kings have departed it is the turn of the Grand Viziers to have an innings. ,First came a stream of books by soldiers and sailors describing the part they played in the great war. Since then the civilians have taken up the tale and celebrate the strife at the Peace table; the general burden of their song is that if they could have had their way the Treaty would have been a very much more satisfactory instrument and the world a very much better place. “The Peace Negotiations,” bv Mr Robert Pausing, is particularly interesting as showing why President Wilson failed to make the treaty acceptable to his countrymen. Mr Pausing is a staunch Democrat. He had been Secretary of State in the Wilson Administration throughout the war, and was a member of the American Peace delegation. At Versailles he did not see eyc-to-eye with the President on many questions to which the latter attached supreme importance, and early in 1920 the President formally asked him to resign, on account of “the increasing reluctance” with which Mr

Lansing followed his instructions. His resignation aroused in America a controversy comparable to the KitchenerFrench controversy in Britain. Mr Lansing’s critics accused him ot disloyalty to his chief ; his champions replied that Air Lansing’s record spoke for itself, and that the President’s “Caesarism” alone was to blame for the rupture with so tried and capable a lieutenant. This hook is Mr Lansing’s answer to his critics ; he seeks to justify “the increasing reluctance’’ to subscribe to a policy which lie was convinced would result in the rejection" oi the treaty by America. One factor in the rejection was that the Senate was piqued at the President’s failure to consult it, or even to inform it what lie was doing. But the Senate was not alone in this grievance; the, members of the delegation, with one exception, had a similar complaint to make. Mr Lansing admits that constitutionally the President has the absolute right of conducting the loreign relations of the Republic, and that it is the duty of a commissioner to follow his instructions. But, after all, what were the commissioners there for if not to help the President, by the expression of their opinion on debatable points. But the President'disdained their help; the onlv one who had any influence on

him was Colonel House, his alter ego j and confidant. The President or the j Colonel would listen most courteously . and attentively to what the others had j to say and would calmly go their way , utterly unmoved. It. was very galling; j Mr Lansing felt that lie was being treated like a child. Why go through the farce of pretending to invite the commissioners’ counsel when his mind was made up beforehand. Mr Lansing believes that at the outset the President made two grave mistakes. In the first place he should never have gone to Europe at the end of the war. His prestige was immense; he dominated

;’ e situation, a d< Inched empyrean figure. Mr Lansing thinks that had he stayed in Washington and carried on the negotiations through his commissioners he could have dictated such terms of peace as he deemed just. But the schoolmaster who deeds to play football with liis hoys cannot object to being dumped. The President, by attending the conference, exposed himself to the give and take of controversy. He was no longer aloof; he was merely one of a crowd, and as such he had loss influence than if lie had stayed at home. That, at least, is Mr Lansing’s view. In the second place, since he was resolved to go to the conference he should have had a definite programme. The ideas embodied in tlie fourteen points were the basis of a policy, but did not amount to a cut and dried programme. The other nations knew exactly what they wanted, but the American aspirations wore still somewhat vague and nebulous. When it came to applying abstract principles to concrete cases the Americans were caught unprepared. Mr Lansing quotes in his

diary from an entry:—"We are like a lot of skilled workmen who are ordered to build a house. We have the materials ;iiid the tools, hut there are no plans and specifications. . . . We potter round in an aimless sort of wav and get nowhere.” The President will not allow anyone else to prepare a plan, yet lie is not doing so himself, lit* "seems to lack the faculty of employing team work, of adopting a system to utilise the brains of other men.” Much of the disagreement was due to a radical difference of temperament between the two. Both were lawyers, and a lawyer is supposed to have an almost superstitious reverence for precedent. But while Mr Lansing was true to type (if the type he the true one!), the President believes that there may he circumstances for which no established legal formula will provide. Again and igain we find Mr Lansing quite scan--Imlised at Dr Wilson’s unorthodox dis-

regard of precedent. Thus Mr Lansing objects to the covenant because it violates a principle of international law which has hitherto been accepted as fundamental—namely, the absolute equality of sovereign St.ates whatever be their size or material power. According to legal theory. Montenegro in on precisely the same footing as the British Empire or the United States. Yet Mr Lansing notes with distaste that Ibo privacy enjoyed by the Big Five at the Conference is to be preserved in the constitution of the league. Again the principle of the mandates is repugnant to him. A mandate is neither fish nor fowl nor good red-her-ring. An out and out cession he can understand ; a protectorate lie can understand ; a condominium he can understand. But what, is a mandate? In the case of mandated territory, where does the actual sovereignty reside? If the reply is, "In the League of Nations,” the question arises, "Does the League possess the attributes of an independent State, so that it can function as an owner of territory? If so, what is if? A world State?” But the difficulties of which Mr Lansing is con-

scious do not impress the President

They are dismissed as so much hair splitting. Tf Mr Lansing’s legal sense is offended, the President is impatient. Why fiddle, with teehniealil k\s when the world is burning, the President asks in effect..

Mr Lansing supports the view that, although the President was in many ways the outstanding figure at the conference, he was frequently out-man-

oeurred, notably in the case of the [ Shantung settlement, which Mr Lansing j regards as a grave blot upon the j Treaty. The Italian delegates had j withdrawn on account of the Finnic j dispute. The Japanese who had urged j that the racial equality clause should j be included in the covenant also threat- ; plied to withdraw. The President, fearing that the defection of these two powers would jeopardise the prospects of the League, agreed with the Japanese to give way on the question of Shantung, receiving in return an assurance that the Japanese would not press the . racial equality claim. In Mr Lansing’# opinion, lie was Muffed twice over. The racial equality claim was never seriously meant; it was something to bargain with, a device to allow Japan to make a colourable concession that was in fact no concession at all, and Mr | Lansing further believes I hut in no circumstances would the Japanese have carried out their threat. Japan valued the superior 'international position i which she, held as one of the Big Five, and which she would hold as a member of the Executive. Council of the League, far too highly to abandon it.