SUCCESS AT THE CONFERENCE

The National Council for the Limitation of Armaments has asked for the opinion of the college press on the following subject: "What will constitute Success at the Washington Conference?"

Considering that the Conference was called for the ostensible purpose of reducing naval armaments, success would seem to depend on the extent to which they are reduced. But, as a matter of fact, much more than this is now in the way of being accomplished; Hughes, for example, refers to the Four Power treaty as a step towards "enduring peace". This seems to imply that the Conference has assumed a greater responsibility than the mere limitation of armaments. Success, then, depends on the extent which war is made impossible.

Supposing that a complete reduction of armaments--land as well as naval--were possible, would that mean that we had made an end of war? The answer is in the negative. In the first place we have but to look back on the recent war to see that science has so far progressed that even if every battleship were sunk and every piece of ordinance scrapped, no nation would be rendered impotent to attack its neighbor. Gas and airplanes and innumerable other modern instruments of destruction, the manufacture of which can not be subject to control, would remain. Not only that but, looking back to 1918 again, we know that war is, today, above all a question of economic organization. The United States in 1917 was, at least as far as land armaments went, disarmed; yet in less than eighteen months it had in the field a fighting force which was not only extremely powerful but capable of almost unlimited expansion.

It may be objected however that idplomats recognize all this and for this very reason are making an effort to eliminate the cause of war--conflicting interests of the nations, particularly in the Far East. But no matter how successfully present differences may be harmonized, no one can be so sanguine as to hope that what is at best a temporary settlement will take care of future divergency of interests and causes for conflict.

If, then, the Washington Conference cannot make an end of war by the mere process of reducing armaments, no matter how greatly, and if furthermore it cannot eradicate the causes of war, how is it to be successful? The parties to the Conference must realize that if we are to have permanent peace, each nation must be willing to sacrifice its own interests to a certain extent for that end. The United States, for example, cannot expect France to lay down its arms unless it has some guarantee against the to her very real threat of Germany. In other words, there must be some binding agreement among the nations which will make aggression on the part of any single nation mean the opposition to it of the entire force of the civilized world. Call such an agreement what you will, object that it is virtually "Article X"; it is nevertheless a fundamental necessity for permanent peace.

In answer, then, to the question of the National Council: success at the Washington Conference demands, of course, a reduction of armaments as complete as possible; and as complete as possible agreement and compromise among the nattions on conflicting policies. But such reduction and compromise will amount to nothing unless they are made effective by some forward-looking, obligatory agreement as we have suggested above. If we are to make an end of organized War we must have organized Peace.