Washington and the Riddle of Peace

by H. G. Wells

And now there has been a decided ebb in the high spirit of the conference. These disputes about details have produced a considerable amount of fatigue, attention is fatigued and the exploit of M. Briand has for a time shattered and confused the general mentality. The American public was in a state of pure and simple enthusiasm for peace and disarmament and quite unprepared for the exploit of M. Briand. Like all serious shocks, it did not at first produce its full result.

The mood was so amiable here, so eager for cheering and emotional human brotherhood, that when France, in the person of M. Briand, snapped her fingers at the mere idea of disarmament and quoted a twenty-year-old passage from a dead German Field Marshal to justify a vast army and an aggressive naval programme in the face of an exhausted Europe, there was a touching disposition on the part of a considerable section of the American press to greet this display as in some way conducive to our millennial efforts. Only a few of us called a spade a spade right away and declined to pretend that the irony and restrained indignation of Mr. Balfour and Signor Schanzer were “indorsements” of M. Briand’s stupendous claim that France with her submarines and Senegalese might do as she pleased in Europe.

The facts that the caustic and restrained utterances of these gentlemen could be so construed, and that the London Daily Mail should attempt to break and mutilate my comments on the French attitude, demonstrate beyond doubt the need there was for the utmost outspokenness in this matter. But the situation is now better realized. The air is already clearer for the outburst. France, we realize, has to stop bullying Germany and threatening Italy; Europe can only be saved by the honest and unreserved co-operation of Italy, France and Britain for mutual aid and reassurance.

The repercussion of the Franco-British clash was immediately evident upon the other issues of the conference. The practical refusal of France to join in the generous renunciations of America and Britain, the feeling of insecurity created in Western Europe weakened Britain in her ability to work with America on the Pacific for a secure China and for restraint upon the possible imperialism of Japan. Britain cannot do that with a hostile neighbor behind her and an uncertain America at her side, and the prospects of a free China and for an effective limitation of the Japanese naval strength were greatly imperilled. Japanese demands stiffened. “Ten to six,” said America. “Ten to seven,” answered Japan.

The effect upon what I might call the Washington state of mind throughout the world was depressing. The easy onrush of the opening days was checked. Here was hard work ahead, complications, the traditions and mental habits of two great European peoples were in conflict and had somewhat to be adjusted if we were to get on. The Anglo-French Entente, we discovered, was in a very unsatisfactory state; it had suddenly to be sent to the wash and the washing had to be done in public, and this happened at a phase of lassitude. In the ebb of the great enthusiasm all sorts of buried rocks and shoals became apparent again. Party politics reappeared—and remained showing.

I am an innocent child in American politics; I know that I make my artless remarks upon these things at considerable peril. But I gather from the self-betrayals of one or two influential people that things are somewhat in this frame. The Democrats feel that so far they have been almost supernaturally “good” about the conference. They haven’t said a word by way of criticism; they have hailed and helped and smiled and cheered. Still——If things should so turn out that a kind of insufficiency should appear, and if people’s minds should revert thereupon toward the Democratic League of Nations idea, so much under a cloud at present, it would be rather more than human not to feel a faint gleam of pleasure and perhaps even to give the gentlest of pushes to the process of disillusionment.

And on the other hand, there betrays itself now and then a slight nervous eagerness on the part of loyal rather than good Republicans to call anything that happens a success and to become indignant when, as in the case of the Briand oration, a spade is called a spade. And that childish, undignified and dwindling tendency of certain American types to regard all foreign powers in general, and Britain in particular, as forever engaged in diabolical machinations against the peace and purity of American life is also increasingly evident. There is an open, if incoherent, press campaign against disarmament, against the British, against foreigners generally, against—any troublesome thing you like.

These are ebb tide phenomena. These are the limitations of our poor humanity under fatigue. None the less, matters have to be thrashed out and will be thrashed out. As I said in the beginning, it is hard to keep hold.

And so it was high time that the President, who embodies so much of the simplicity and strength of that real America, in which I am a profound and obstinate believer, should come back into the limelight from which he receded after delivering his great speech and leaving the chair on the opening day of the conference. In the indirect way customary with Presidents here he has been making some very important pronouncements.

My friend Mr. Michelson some days ago published a sketch of very important proposals that had already received wide support in the informal discussions that pervade Washington—for partial rescinding of the Allied debts, subject to disarmament conditions, to be considered by a second conference to be presently assembled. Following on this news the President has been talking for publication of a third experiment in the form of a second Washington Conference to take up these issues. And he has also been talking of a third conference to confirm and go on with the disarmament arrangements, a conference at which Germany and the Spanish-speaking powers, if not Russia, are apparently to have a voice. Such a periodic repetition of the conference would presently organize itself for a continuing life and so develop gradually and naturally into that Association of Nations we are all seeking.