Where Are We Going?

by David Lloyd George

It is unfortunate that countries which cover more than half Europe should feel thus about a body whose success depends entirely on the confidence reposed in its impartiality by all the nations which may be called upon to carry out its decrees, even though these may be adverse to their views or supposed interests. The Vilna fiasco, the Armenian failure, the suspicions that surround the Silesian award, the timidity which prevents the tackling of reparations, which is the one question disturbing the peace of Europe to-day, the futile conversations and committees on disarmament which everyone knows, will not succeed in scrapping one flight of aëroplanes or one company of infantry. All these disappointments arise from one predominating cause. What is it?

Undoubtedly the great weakness of the League comes from the fact that it only represents one half the great powers of the world. Until the others join you might as well call the Holy Alliance a League of Nations.

The ostensible purpose of that combination was also to prevent a recurrence of the wars that had for years scorched Europe, and to establish European peace on the firm basis of a joint guarantee of delimited frontiers. But certain powers with selfish ambitions dictated its policy. They terrorised Europe into submission and called that peace.

No historical parallel is quite complete, but there is enough material in the occurrences of to-day to justify the reference. The League to be a reality must represent the whole civilised world. That is necessary to give it balance as well as authority. That was the original conception. To ask why that failed is to provoke a bitter and a barren controversy.

I do not propose to express any opinion as to the merits of the manœuvres which led to the defeat of the treaty in America. Whether the Senate should have honoured the signature of an American President given in the name of his country at an international conference, or whether the commitment was too fundamentally at variance with American ideas to justify sanction—whether the amendments demanded as the condition of approval would have crippled the League and ought to have been rejected, or whether they were harmless and ought to have been accepted—these are issues which it would serve no helpful purpose for me to discuss.

But as to the effect of the American refusal to adhere to the League, there can be no doubt. It robbed that body of all chance of dominating success in the immediate future. It is true that three great powers remained in the League, but Russia was excluded, Germany was not included, and when America decided not to go in, of the great powers, Britain, France and Italy alone remained.

The effect has been paralysing. Where these three powers disagree on important issues upon which action is required, nothing is done. The smaller powers cannot, on questions where one or more of the great powers have deep and acute feeling, impose their will; and no two great powers will take the responsibility of overruling the third.

Hence questions like reparations which constitute a standing menace to European peace are not dealt with by the League. Had America been in, even with an amended and expurgated constitution, the situation would have been transformed. America and Britain, acting in concert with an openly sympathetic Italy and a secretly assenting Belgium, would have brought such pressure to bear on France as to make it inevitable that the League should act.

The success of the League depends upon the readiness of nations great and small to discuss all their differences at the council table. But no great power has so far permitted any international question in which it has a direct and vital interest to be submitted to the League for decision.