Limited Obligations

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 148, 13 September 1927, Page 9

Limited Obligations

BRITISH EMPIRE AND LEAGUE

Chamberlain Clearly States England’s Policy

THAT Great Britain cannot i to guarantee the securit; parts of the world, and to sup tration tribunals of the Lea stated by the British Foreign berlain, in an important ;;pe policy of the British Empire ii were outlined. Britain has anc disarmament, and settlement 1 tions must be limited. British Wireless —P. RUGBY, Sunday. An extended report has been received from Geneva of the speech delivered by the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Austen Chamberlain, at the Assembly of the League of Nations. This shows that he made an uncompromising reply to the critics of the British policy in regard to security and disarmament. What was demanded, he said, would mean the destruction of the British Empire. “It would be idle to pretend that the failure of the recent three-Powers conference on the limitation of naval arms has not caused a certain disquiet and anxiety lest the failure to reach an agreement should be a prelude only to a larger failure by the Preparatory Commission of the League,” continued Sir Austen. “No one can regret more than do my countrymen the failure to reach an agreement at the Naval Conference. But even from that failure we may draw the hope that we may in time win success. “We may find encouragement in the fact that the three great Powers should have met to discuss so vital a question and should have found themselves sustaining opposite* and irreconcilable schemes; that they should have carried on the discussion under the eye of the public and, when after all they were unable to agree, that their cordial relations of amity and. respect should have remained unimpaired and their confidence in the peaceful intentions of each other should have received no check. “But was not the failure of that conference a lesson for us all?” proceeded Sir Austen. “The Locarno Conference was preceded by nine months’ anxious and careful preparations, and yet those who took part in it knew what ..the diffculties were that had to be overcome before the treaties o;i Locarno were signed. Need for Preparation “May it not be that the failure to agree at the Naval Conference came from a lack of preparation, from a failure to secure a sufficient basis of agreement before the conference met? May we not draw from it the resolution io work patiently, even if we work slcwly, and that it is not always by hurrying that the greatest or even the quickest results are achieved. “Britain yields to no other country in her desire to see a real and large restriction in armaments,” said Sir Austen. “Her interest in disarmament lies not only in words and speeches, but in facts. The British Army was reduced immediately peace had been secured to less than its prewar level, to a strength which is only sufficient to discharge the great responsibilities which Britain carries on her shoulders in so many parts of the world. “Our navy cannot be compared with the navy which we maintained, i do not say during the war, but before the war. Year by year the Budgets for the armed forces of Britain have grown less. I beg you to ask yourselves, which of you, if you carried our load of the responsibility for the peace of so many and of such scattered countries, in such varied tions, would hav.e done more?” "Is there any country, I would even ask, that would have done as much?' Our interest is shown by the risks we have taken, and are taking, and by the reductions in armaments we have already made Far be it from, me to say that there is not a further contribution which we can make to the cause of disarmament and peace. “Knowing all this, for the sake of peace, an dto help to bring the three nations concerned in the Naval Conference together, to give them the security which would make their mutual agreements possible, we pledged our word once more to do — in case of any aggression against those Western frontiers —for Germany, for France, for Belgium, as the case may be, what we pledged our word to do before —a pledge we were called upon to keep.

undertake to use her resources ty of national frontiers in all pport the decisions of the arbiague of Nations, was plainly 1 Secretary, Sir Austen Cham?ech at Geneva, in which the n its relations with the League d will continue to work for the by arbitration, but her obliga*ress Assn.—Copyright who are so anxious for this international action could take under their protection? Is there none to which they could give their guarantee, as we have pledged ours on the Western frontiers of Europe, and by so doing bring together two other nations which at present are regarding each 'other with mutual suspicion and fear?” “You say we are not doing enough," continued Sir Austen. “You invite us to take for every country and for every frontier the guarantee which we have taken under one treaty. You are asking nothing less than the disruption of the British Empire." Sir Austen then turned from disarmament to the subject of arbitration. He said: “I would beg you to bear in mind the special condition of the British Empire. Ours is not a unitary system of Government, such as prevails in your countries. We are a great community of free and equal nations, each one autonomous, united in the oldest League of Peace in the world. It is not easy for an Empire so constituted always to accept obligations which can be readily undertaken by a State that is homogeneous and compact, and speak with the one voice of a single Government. What Britain Has Done “It is not easy and it would not be right, to accent obligations unless we not only have the intention, but know that we have the power to fulfil them. You think sometimes we are backward. There is an undercurrent of a suggestion that, because we cannot participate in all the plans which are framed we are stopping the progress of the League, and are obstacles in its way. “I beg you to think of what we have done. Ido not know whether we have signed more treaties of arbitration than Italy or any other country, or not. I think we have arbitrated more grave problems than any other country in the world. Only the other day the Council of the League was occupied for no small time with the decision as to what was to be the frontier of Iraq. We have accepted the Council of the League, not as a conciliator, but as judge. We had bound ourselves in advance to accept and to obey the decision of the Council, whatever it might be, for us or against us. * 4 lt was rendered in our favour. What use did we make of it? Did we use it to say, ‘Those are our rights? The Council of the League has awarded them to us, about them there can be no negotiations.’ No. That very award which was given in our favour we used to open negotiations with Turkey and to make a concession to her which had not been required by the Council, and in that way be made acceptable to Turkey an award which, if rigidly enforced, she might have found difficult to regard with anything but dislike. “I recognise the devotion of the majority of the members of the League to the famous Protocol. The Greek delegate, M. Politis, who contributed largely to the formation of the Protocol, has told the Assembly that the work of the League will never be complete until the League ■ has been made, not what it is now, an Assembly of sovereign State's meeting in Council, but a super-State which could give orders to all other | States; not only for the conduct of their external affairs, but as to their behaviour and what they must d© within their own boundaries, and . among their own people. “That way,” said Sir Austen, “dan--1 ger lies. It is not so that I see the ’ nature of the League. The judgment ; of the League is the judgment of the highest tribunal to which here on ! earth any nation can appeal to justify ' its action, and of whose approval any * nation will have infinite need in the * moment of trial and trouble. t “The British Government bases t its whole policy upon the League, because no country, however powerful, can even to-day disregard your moral judgment, or be blind to the advantage of being able i to come here before you, or your Council, to plead its cases, to receive your approval, and to justify itself before the world. “We have accomplished much. We shall accomplish more. The work may be accomplished in two ways and from both ends. The growing reconciliation between ancient enemies, or former enemies, makes the risk less, and makes whatever guarantees you want easier to give. A Better Path “Is there not as much to be done on the path which Germany and France have chosen —that of direct reconciliation —as by any amendment of the Covenant of the League, or by any addition to it, or by the Protocol, or by the heaping ußj)f sanctions? “I place more value on such declara tions as those made in the Assembly by the Foreign Ministers of France and Germany, M. Briand and Herr Stresemann—solemn declarations of a determination to pursue a peaceful course and to eliminate war from the future relations of their countries — than on all the sanctions which the League could apply to either country if it broke its pledge. “Perhaps we view the future of the League a little differently. Our faith j in it is the same, our purpose is the \ same, but the way in which we would j reach our purpose varies with our j circumstances, our temperament, and I our responsibilities. I look to no hasty and dramatic way. I look to no series of sensational steps, to make the League what in time we all hope it is to be.

“You ask us to do more. Could uot some of you do as much before pressing us to go further? Is there no other troubled frontier which those

“I think of the League rather as a seed which some man of goodwill and imagination planted less than ten years ago, which is now a sturdy sapling, though at no particular moment could we mark its progress. I think of it as ever growing and expanding, until it becomes a mighty oak, under which all nations of the world shall find their secure and constant shelter.” The leader of the Labour Party, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, in an interview

published in the “Daily Herald,” says Sir Austen Chamberlain’s speecn at Geneva was most unfortunate and was calculated to increase Britain’s difficulties in Europe. In the last three years Britain had become more isolated. Mr. Baldwin's Government, both in trade and in international policy, had given the world to understand that the Empire was unable to adapt itself to modern conditions. Nothing could be more awkward, said Mr. MacDonald, than the statement that the adoption of the Geneva Protocol would disrupt the Empire. Anyhow, 'it was not true, and Britain should leave such things to be said by her enemies. Britain had gratuitously thrown away the position she had held in Europe. The diplomatic correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says Sir Austen’s speech is regarded in foreign diplomatic quarters as a landmark in the evolution of post-war Britain. It was uttered with the full weight and authority of the Home Government and of every delegation from the Governments of the Dominions. The speech, says the correspondent, said what no one hitherto had had the courage to say at Geneva, that the manhood and the treasure of the Empire were not to be indiscriminately mortgaged for the benefit of other and frequently quarrelsome nations. Sir Austen disposed admirabl3 T of sloppy internationalism. As one of the most sagacious of British diplomatists had said. “Britain had no desire to act either as the chief vonstable or the chief dupe of the European Continent.” A message from Paris says the speech has aroused some criticism in certain of the newspapers, which complain of the so-called narrowness of British policy. The publicist “Pertinax" in the “Echo de Paris.” has translated the general tenor of the speech into the words: “May the League perish rather than the British Empire.” The “Liberte” says Britain regards the League in the light of a limited liability company. The “Oaulois” describes the speech as frank to the point of brutality. The “Matin” says the loeric of Sir Austen’s utterance is not comprehensible to the French mind.