Peacemakers—Blessed and Otherwise / Observations, Reflections and Irritations at an International Conference

by Ida M. Tarbell

Mr. Root hurried in with his four principles. Mr. Hughes outlined his Nine Power Pact, which was to assent to the principles and the practical applications of them which were to be worked out.

But the naval program had to have another prop before it could proceed. It was not worth the paper it was written on unless England and Japan agreed to it. They agreed in principle at the start, but in practice they could and would not until they were sure that the nation that was asking them to disarm wanted peace in the Pacific badly enough to join them in a league to assure it by coöperation. Before they scrapped their ships they wanted to know whether their present boundaries and rights were to be respected by their colleagues—whether if one of them suffered aggression from without the others were to remain indifferent or were willing to pledge at least moral support. The Four Power Pact was the prop desired. England, the United States, France and Japan agree in it to face the future in the Pacific together. Pull out this prop and your program for scrapping ships and a naval holiday falls flat—as flat as the disarmament of France has fallen and for the same reason. If this Conference for the Limitation of Armament does nothing more than to make the American public understand better what has been at the bottom of the conduct of France since the Armistice, it will have been worth all it cost.

France has held up the peace of Europe, delayed its reconstruction, lessened her own chances of reparation, alienated her best friends by her persistent militarism. Go back to the peace treaty of 1919 when disarmament was one of the fundamental principles adopted by the allied nations. From the start France’s argument in regard to disarmament was that for her it was impossible unless England and the United States would guarantee her against aggression from Germany—if they would do that she would disarm. In order to get disarmament, Mr. Wilson and Lloyd George agreed to protect France against unprovoked attacks. Our Senate refused to ratify the agreement.

Having no guarantees, France kept her arms. Keeping her arms, the military spirit spread, the military group grew stronger. How strong recent events have shown.

One-third of the agenda of the Washington Conference—that in regard to land disarmament—had to be scrapped ten days after the opening because a reduction of land armament still meant to France a guarantee, the same kind of a guarantee in principle that a little later we gave to Japan in order to make it possible for her to agree with Great Britain and ourselves on the naval program. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the Conference on the Limitation of Armament is its demonstration that disarmament means a union of the nations that disarm, that in no other way, the world being what it is, can it be accomplished.

Along with this demonstration has gone another, frequently repeated, that this union to which you are to pin your faith instead of ships and armies, if it is to be permanent, must be all inclusive.

Again and again the Conference ran up against the difficulty that although all the nations represented in Washington might make agreements to cut down their capital ships, limit their auxiliary craft to 10,000 tons and their guns to 8 inches, put the mark of pirate on a submarine that attacked a merchant vessel, forbid chemical warfare, limit the number of air-craft ships—any one or all of these restrictions might overnight be frustrated by one nation or a group of nations outside of the alliance, entering on an ambitious and aggressive campaign of naval construction. That is, this fine program for the limitation of armament—almost certain to be carried out if the Four Power Pact in regard to the waters of the Pacific and the Nine Power Pact in regard to the protection of China are ratified by the different governments—still may be destroyed overnight by some part of the world not included in this union for peace. So obvious is this that the naval pact includes an agreement that in case any one of the signing nations finds itself in a dangerous position in regard to an aggressive neighbor, it shall have the right to withdraw. Every step that has been taken in the Washington Conference leads inevitably to the conclusion that it is all or none—if the work is to stand.

The difficulty in the way of most people and most nations accepting this conclusion is that they do not believe any such union of all nations practical. They cannot see men of all races working together, settling only by agreement the misunderstandings that inevitably come up.

If the Conference on the Limitation of Armament has demonstrated the necessity of world coöperation if we are to have peace, it has also demonstrated its practicability. Mr. Hughes started off by calling on the two nations which the people of this country have for a long time regarded with the most suspicion—the two nations against which we have conducted a persistent campaign of ill will—England and Japan. Yet for three months the delegations of these two nations worked with ours in the utmost friendliness. Again and again I heard Mr. Hughes declare that nobody could have been more coöperative, as he expressed it, than the delegates from England and Japan. It was obvious that those countries were quite as eager as ourselves to work out agreements that would enable them to declare a naval holiday. All those initial suspicions that we had of England and Japan and that England and Japan had of us did not prevent the delegates of the three countries from coming to conclusions on matters on which they had differed. What it seems to prove is that you can get peace by friendly negotiation, that a coöperation of nations is not a dream, that it is a reality.

What more amazing and convincing proof of this than the fact that China and Japan did, by conference, agree on Shantung? Who would have believed it possible? What made it possible was the faith and the wisdom of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Balfour, their determination that the Chinese and Japanese should learn to work together. “Talk it over” was their instruction. “The Shantung question can only be settled peaceably by yourselves.” It was one of the wisest, one of the most significant decisions of the Washington Conference. Day after day the Chinese and Japanese held conversations—not conferences. They talked, they quarreled. Day after day they went home in wrath and disgust, refusing suggested compromises, pleading the danger of losing their heads if they consented. If the Chinese delegates offered Peking anything less than an immediate and completely free Shantung, they could never again pass the border of China. If the Japanese gave up even what they had promised to give up, their lives would not be worth a song in Tokyo. Yet, day by day, Japan was giving in a little, China becoming a little more coöperative. Mr. Harding, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Balfour stayed on the outside, genial but determined friends—determined that these two Eastern neighbors should begin now to settle their disagreements. More than once, China came to them: “Make Japan be good, great friends. You know Shantung is ours. Make her be good.”