[Editor’s Note—These remarks, while originally prepared last summer for the Institute of Politics at Williamstown, Massachusetts, are considered of such merit by the Board of Control as to warrant their publication in the Proceedings, despite the fact that they were given considerable publicity by the Associated Press at the time they were made.]
The Washington Conference is past and gone but its consequences remain with us for better, for worse. It runs till 1936 and we should know what it has done for us.
I was asked to speak on the Washington Conference for the Limitation of Armaments. I served on the citizen’s committee of advisors to the American delegation, but I did not get as much understanding of the question from this duty as might have been expected because the delegation relied only to a small extent on its advisory committee. What I am about to say, therefore, is based on a comparison of public documents.
The agenda of the conference included naval armaments, land armaments, rules of warfare for the new methods developed in the recent war, and questions relating to the Pacific and Far Eastern countries.
As for the question of land armaments, it was disposed of almost immediately by the French delegation who declined any limitation of their armaments as long as the United States and England refused guarantees for security along the Rhine.
The Japanese indicated, also, that they did not care to discuss land armaments. The naval armaments and the political questions in the Pacific and Far East were closely related.
As the Navy is thus tied up with politics, I think it desirable to explain what function navies perform in the national life. The first, and almost the only duty of navies in all times, in all countries, is to protect commerce. The Athenian Empire grew on its navy, which protected the commerce of the eastern Mediterranean, and the profits secured from commerce were so much that Athens not only supported its navy but it grew rich on the profits of commerce.
Similarly the British Empire today is based on its supremacy in ocean transportation.
The United States Navy originated in 1794, when the Barbary pirates attacked our commerce in the Mediterranean, and it is alleged that they were encouraged to do so by England, who found our commercial rivalry disturbing.
It may be well here to dwell on the importance of commerce in war, because an enemy may be overcome in two ways, either by bloodshed or by loss of its economic means of support. In the recent great war, for example, England and Germany struggled on the battlefields of Flanders by bloodshed, but they also struggled each to starve the other by cutting off ocean-borne commerce. Germany succeeded in annoying England by the submarine warfare, but England was entirely successful in cutting off the ocean-borne traffic to Germany. It may be noted, however, that during the time of our neutrality one of the American complaints against the English conduct of the war was that Great Britain interrupted our traffic with Germany and substituted her own.
Navies do not engage in fleet battles as is usually supposed with victory as an end. Victory is a means only. As soon as one side has disposed of the fleet of the other, it is then free to destroy the commerce of the enemy and to protect its own. As long as the two fleets do not engage, and are fairly equal, the commerce of each is in doubt.
Ocean-borne commerce is one of the chief means of civilization and progress in the world. From the beginning of time the exchange of products has brought knowledge as well as freight. At the present time, with the great specialization of industries the products of the world go to all parts of the world. Some countries, as we have heard in the chemical discussions, have products which are necessary to all. The control of shipping enables a nation which possesses it to direct the traffic of the world to its own advantage. As we know in business, it is the middle man who gets rich. The banker stands between borrower and lender and gets rich. The lawyer stands between two litigants and gets rich. The railways which, until the interstate commerce law in this country, stood between the producer and the consumer, grew rich. And so the control of ocean transportation by any one nation puts it in the middleman’s position to grow rich by controlling the traffic between producer and consumer.
As an example, in 1919 the price of steam coal f.o.b. at Cardiff was about twice the price of similar coal f.o.b. in Hampton Roads. Brazil wanted coal, but the situation of ocean traffic was such that British ships took the high-priced Cardiff coal to Brazil, in the interests of British business.
Cables also were a great aid in controlling business. A few years ago our Secretary of State informed the Foreign Office in London that there was reason to believe that American business despatches over English cables were manipulated to help British business. Lord Curzon replied, saying in substance that such a thing appeared unthinkable, and asked for evidence. When the State Department asked the complainants to step forward, they said that their business was already crippled and if they should appear as witnesses it would be ruined. So the State Department was obliged to drop the matter. I have seen similar consular reports as to the control of news in the Far East.
In order to discuss the question of limitation of armaments we must understand the British trade policy. During the nineteenth century Great Britain had developed a supremacy in the business of the world through her coal and iron manufactures and delivery by British shipping. By 1900 Germany and the United States were passing her in coal and iron, as well as in manufactures. The close of the war found her, in comparison with the United States, inferior in manufactures and in coal and iron. The war had developed a great merchant fleet in the United States, whereas the
English merchant fleet, though superior to that of the United States, was much reduced by submarine losses. There was no appearance that the British Empire, with 45,000,000 inhabitants, could rival the United States, with 100,000,000, in industrial output. A new policy to maintain as far as possible, her place in the world, was necessary. She seems to have decided to develop her position as traffic master of the world.
She established a ministry of fuel after the war. She made a combination with the Dutch oil interests. She developed her own oil in Mesopotamia. She wanted to use her fuel stations throughout the world, and by the control of shipping to hold as much of a predominance in the world as was possible. This position would be impaired were the United States to have a great merchant fleet.
In 1919, on the close of the war, Great Britain seems to have resolved that she must cut expenditures, and while doing so do all that she could to preserve peace in the world while she was recuperating her finances. But at the close of the war, not only was there a big American merchant fleet but there was a big navy as well to protect that merchant fleet.
The prosperity of the United States depends on its continued export of about ten per cent of its products. As we have heard from the chemical lecturers, we must have products of one sort or another from all corners of the earth. In order to keep that prosperity in peace and in war, even when we are neutral in war, we must be able to rely on our own merchant fleet in all times, because when war comes, the belligerent nation will require all its shipping and more as well, for its own service, and if we rely on another nation to provide our shipping service, if that nation goes to war the prosperity of the United States will be far more affected than if we have our own means of transporting our products to the four corners of the earth.
As I have said, the Navy at the close of the war was in keeping with the size of the new merchant fleet. Not only did we have a great Navy, but the Army was also large. President Wilson wanted an army of 500,000 men, and although General Pershing and the general staff told him that half of that would be amply large for a nucleus upon which to develop an armed strength in time of war, nevertheless, he did not heed them. While England had laid down no new battleships since the beginning of the war, the United States had sixteen great ones which it had started, and it was alleged that Mr. Wilson’s belief was that he would be the virtual head of the League of Nations, and the Army and Navy of the United States would be his instrument with which to compel the world to peace.
Great Britain was probably little interested in the size of our Army, but was much interested in the merchant service and Navy, both of which it was important to the Empire to see reduced. Accordingly, in the spring of 1920, the First Lord of the Admiralty announced as a national policy that it would be content with a one-power navy. The meaning of this conference was that in answer to Germany’s growing naval power it had been the policy of Great Britain to maintain what it called a two- power navy, that is to say, content to build equal to the combined navies of the two greatest naval powers. Now the German Navy was destroyed, and the American Navy was far outbuilding the British.
This announcement from the British Government in March, 1920, brought no reply from Mr. Wilson. In the fall of 1920, when Parliament met, the First Lord of the Admiralty went a step further. He announced that they hoped to get a call for the limitation of armaments from the United States. The Democratic party was still in power, and it can scarcely be believed that they had already interviewed the Republican candidate. However that may be, the press of the country began to call out for limitation of naval armament in the interest of peace and the reduction of expense, and in the winter of 1921, while the Democrats were still in office, the Naval Secret Service, which was still serving, because peace had not yet been declared with Germany, called the attention of the Navy Department to British propaganda in the United States for the reduction of armaments. However, as the Democrats were just going out of power, they were perfectly willing to leave the settlement of the control of public opinion in the United States to be settled by the incoming Republicans.
In regard to foreign propaganda in this country you may recollect that Mr. Harding found it necessary to protest publicly against foreign lobbies at the capital influencing national policies. He was referring to his shipping policy of a subsidy, which foreigners disliked.
Whatever you may believe about the origin of the cry for reduction of naval armaments, it took on well in the country, and decided Mr. Hughes to call a conference to effect that purpose. In the summer of 1921 a conference of colonial prime ministers was called in London, and before it adjourned Mr. Harding sent the President of Columbia University, Nicholas Murray Butler, to sound out the British Government on the subject.
Lloyd George said that the bases of armaments were political conditions, and that he could not think of agreeing to disarmament unless the political difficulties were first settled, but he accepted the idea of the discussion of both.
Accordingly, early in August, Mr. Hughes issued^ a call for a conference to meet in Washington on November 11 following. Now, as the question of disarmament, according to Mr. Lloyd George, depended on the political situation in the Far East, we must see how that stood.
The matter of greatest importance in the Far East was the control of trade with China. There was a nation of 300,000,000 or 400,000,000 people with which all the nations of the world were anxious to trade. At one time it had been divided into what were called “spheres of influence,” that is to say, the English claimed the predominance of trade in one part, the French in another, the Japanese in another. The United States did not stake out any sphere of interest.
In 1899 Mr. Hay got the powers to consent to what he called the principle of the “open door.” That is to say, they agreed not to take undue advantage of each other in trade.
Ever since their success in the war with China in 1894-95, the Japanese have had before them the economic and political idea of developing their trade relations with China until they should predominate over the rest of the world, and the other nations which wanted to retain a hold therein. As a result of Russia’s seizing the peninsula of Liao-Yang, Russia had established herself securely with a base on the Pacific. About this time there was a party in Russia which suggested an agreement with Germany so that Germany should have a free hand in Southeastern Europe, and Russia was free to develop in Asia. At the same time England was threatened by Germany’s decision to increase her navy, which threatened England’s supremacy in trade. At this time England announced her two-power standard.
As I have said, Japan was anxious for predominance in China. Now, as Russia threatened both English and Japanese interests there it was possible for the two countries to make their treaty of 1902 for their mutual assistance. It guaranteed each in her position. It left England unembarrassed by eastern questions to face Germany, and it secured English support for Japan. At the same time, while it made Japan supreme in Asia it also permitted Germany a much favored position in European affairs. In the war with Russia which began in 1904, the alliance carried Japan through the war with success. England also secured about the same time her entente cordiale with France. The treaty of 1902 guaranteed the independence of Korea. The treaty had to be amended in 1905 to suit the new position of Japan, because England could not yet forego the Japanese alliance, but in this amendment the English went further than they had done in the first treaty.
The first treaty said that either party was to come to the support of the other were it attacked by a third power. The new treaty of 1905 said that in case of any aggression the other party to the alliance was to come in. This was a further guarantee of Japan’s position in the Far East. But this treaty of 1905 ran for ten years. It had to be revised again to suit the new conditions in 1911, because the year before Japan had annexed Korea, which was not provided for in the treaty. England still needed an alliance in the face of the European situation. However, the English situation had been considerably ameliorated in 1907 by an agreement with Russia securing central Asian affairs and the position of the two countries in Persia and Afghanistan, but the United States was standing still for the “open door” in the Far East, which made some friction with Japan, under the terms of Mr. Hay’s convention made at the time of the Boxer trouble. But though the European situation pledged England to ally herself with Japan, she had no wish to fight the United States if the latter should oppose Japan, so England agreed to the arbitration treaty made in Mr. Taft’s administration, in which the arbitration court would settle the disputes. Consequently, the Japanese treaty was modified to take account of this arbitration treaty and excused England from going to war with the United States if the latter should quarrel with Japan. But the Senate refused the arbitration treaty, although in the meantime England had signed the modified Japanese Treaty, so that technically, in the failure of the arbitration treaty, England was still bound, as an ally of Japan, to go to war with the United States, so England fell back on a technical phrase in the form of the Treaty of 1914 with the United States, in order to call that an arbitration treaty.
Thus the great war came on. The English alliance afforded an excuse to Japan to take over the German possessions in Shantung, and also allowed Japan to make great advances in China, Siberia, and Manchuria.
The United States stood for the “open door,” so after the war, when Mr. Hughes issued the call for a conference on naval reduction, the Japanese and English treaty was the chief political thing, although the latter did not appear on the agenda. The English propaganda in this country to insist on economy and to do away with armaments to prevent war was so successful that that question outshadowed the political relations which armaments defend. As I see it, the conference was called because Great Britain objected to the United States having a merchant fleet and a navy bigger than her own. She held up as a bait the idea of settlements in the Far East as an objective, together with the abrogation of the Japanese alliance. As for this, it is rumored that the colonial premiers had refused to permit its continuance, although it was extended temporarily, and in this way the four-power treaty of Washington enabled Great Britain to save her face, as by its ratification the English- Japanese Alliance was automatically terminated. This position of the colonial premiers is attributed positively to the Canadian Prime Minister in the July Edinburgh Review.
The Japanese would not agree merely to the naval settlement and the cancellation of the English treaty, for that might have allowed England and the United States to coerce Japan about China. And so the four- power treaty pledged the four powers—England, France, the United States, and Japan to hold a conference whenever the rights of one of them in the Pacific questions were challenged. It is not unlike the principle of Locarno. It is a guarantee of the status quo, and terminates the Japanese treaty. It is a pledge of non-intervention and perhaps limits the freedom of the United States and England to put pressure on Japan. I have no doubt that if war came between Japan and Russia, Japan would ask aid of the three signatories of the treaty, although the phrase is vague and might be interpreted otherwise and refused.
We are now able to turn to the naval situation. In the summer of 1921 America was building a great fleet of battleships and battle cruisers. England was building next to nothing. Japan was building to some extent and had a very large paper program which would be a great financial burden to carry out in full. She was already beginning to feel the fall from the period of prosperity at the end of the war.
The English were willing to permit a one- power navy. The Japanese wanted a cut for financial reasons if they could make additional conditions satisfactory to themselves. A limitation of navies could have been made on several different levels. It might be made on the high level of ship building authorized by the United States and Japan, or it might have been made on the low level of England’s non-construction.
The proposing power is at a disadvantage always in such cases. Having initiated the conference at the earnest desire of England, as announced a year before, the Republican party needed an international success to put against the Democratic failure with the League of Nations. For the Republican party to make a failure of this international conference would be a severe blow in home politics. When Mr. Hughes arose to make his opening address, except for the delegation, the technical naval committee, and two clerks, no one knew what the proposal would be. The Navy Department had considered on what the limitation might be based. The budget was rejected because it was too easy to camouflage, as well as because expenses are very different in different countries. The number of men also seemed unsatisfactory on account of the financial differences in wages, and on the management of reserves, which would be very hard to settle, so the displacement of ships was decided on in the belief that displacement was the element least capable of juggling. It was not difficult to arrive at the 5-5-3 ratio, as was proposed by Mr. Hughes, but some status quo was necessary to select upon which to apply the ratio. The English, American, Japanese fleets and ship building status each formed a foundation from one of which it was easy to pass to the other.
When Mr. Hughes read his list of ships to be scrapped it was apparent that the English had been successful in establishing the one- power standard which they had announced eighteen months before, in order to limit the sea power of the United States and to prevent America from becoming her rival. Although Mr. Hughes denied having agreed with the English beforehand, and this denial must be accepted as absolute, it was understood in Washington that the British Ambassador was in frequent conference with him and Mr. Hughes must have known that his proposal would be thoroughly acceptable as to battleships.
But the Hughes proposal included other classes of ships, and limited them in the same ratio. So, while the British welcomed the sacrifice of over 800,000 tons of American shipping which they had come to receive, they had no wish to limit themselves in other classes which they regarded as vital to their supremacy on the seas. So that rejecting the limitation in auxiliary ships and in cruisers, they accepted an amendment to the original proposal which limited the size of cruisers to 10,000 tons and limited their armament to 8-inch guns. So far from terminating the rivalry between the United States and England in naval ship building, it wiped out the standing American superiority and allowed the British to develop at will in a smaller, cheaper class of ship more suited to their finances.
I may mention here that a further limitation of naval armament would be more advantageous to Great Britain than to ourselves, because in time of war the merchant fleet must be protected. If the specialized ships built for the protection of merchant fleets and called a navy are reduced, it will be necessary in a greater degree on the outbreak of war to convert a certain proportion of merchantmen into ships of war in order that they may protect the rest. Thus, Great Britain with the biggest merchant service could afford to see all navies abolished better than any other nation.
The Japanese position in regard to the limitation of armaments was that her policy in Asia and her predominance over the economic affairs in China, Manchuria, and Korea must be maintained. She first argued for a 10-10-7 ratio of ships instead of the 10-10-6 which was the one actually proposed and accepted. However, in the course of discussion after putting this forward she sacrificed it for the demand that there should be no increase in fortifications of the United States west of Hawaii, and no increase of British fortifications east of Singapore. This position in regard to fortifications had been freely announced in the Japanese newspapers long before its delegation started for the United States, but when Mr. Hughes made his proposal he made it complete, with no negotiable points in reservation. Consequently, if he were to sign a treaty at all he had to meet the objections of all comers upon his original proposal. Therefore the Japanese requirements had to be accepted. This gave her great security for her policies in China, because it quite destroyed the effect of Mr. Hughes’ proposed ratio of 5-5-3 since the Japanese home situations and fortifications naturally were not affected.
Mr. Hughes’ proposal included the limitation of submarines, on which proposal there was a marked difference between the English position and the French. The French desired a larger submarine armament than the number assigned in Mr. Hughes’ proposal. The British desired the entire abolishment of submarines. They made a very strong plea on the ground of the inhumanity of submarines, but their real reason was that the French position on submarines challenged their supremacy on the sea, and the French were unwilling to give up submarines because they intended by that means to have some hold and threat on their good friend and ally. Consequently the submarines were untouched.
As I understand the Italian position, I do not think they cared a great deal about what was decided on so long as they were fully equal to France, their rivals in the Mediterranean.
Another subject in the agenda was the rules of warfare with new weapons. On this subject Mr. Root proposed a treaty rejecting the use of poison gas, and forbidding the use of submarines against commerce. My own opinion is that these treaties are not very likely to be observed. Their animating motive was emotional. In war time men accept the fact that people must be killed, but they resent violently the idea of being killed by new methods. When the Germans first used poison gas, the Allies cried out about it as inhuman and scandalous because they had no reply to it. But after the temporary advantage gained by the surprise, the history of the use of gas was the same as that of all other new weapons. As soon as the Allies found out how to deal with it, they developed their poison gas resources and the defense against it by masks, and went to it with greater vim than the Germans.
The medical profession says the effect of poison gas is to produce pneumonia. We do not make any great outcry about natural deaths by pneumonia, and it seems to me that death by pneumonia in war is no worse than any other form of death. Throughout the war, although the Allies were using it most vigorously they cried out against it as inhuman because they thought it a good way to work up public sentiment at home to fight harder against the Germans, but they were far from rejecting it. They did not confine themselves to the use of gas masks.
As to the submarines, I think this part of the treaty is also emotional. The treaty states that as it is apparent that submarines cannot be used against the merchant service without violating the established principles of war, they must not be so used, but as a matter of fact this preamble does not correctly state facts. A submarine can probably accommodate nearly as many men and prisoners in her interior as a torpedo boat of the same size. A torpedo boat could not have removed the crew and the passengers of the Lusitania before sinking her any more than it could have been done by the submarine which actually sank the Lusitania. If submarines are instructed to proceed in accordance with the laws of war as they now exist, they will be able to do so without any more difficulties than other classes of ships.
There was also a resolution passed that a conference should be called to consider other new weapons in warfare, and this convention met a year later at The Hague. The only things submitted to it were aviation and radio, as the other two matters were forbidden by the terms of the resolution. Although the rules then formulated have not been accepted by any power, I think it likely that they will serve as the basis of the rules for aviation and radio in the next war, but at present, in times of peace no nation likes to commit itself to rules until it sees what its own position will be—whether it will profit by them or not, according as it is a belligerent or a neutral in the next war.
The basis of the agreement about aviation was substantially that air machines are not weapons but vehicles, and that whatever is proper for a belligerent to effect against his adversary when he is in another vehicle, it is proper for him to accomplish when he is riding in the air. If, under certain circumstances, it is proper to bombard a city by artillery on the ground, under those same conditions it would be proper to bombard it from the air. If under other circumstances it is improper to bombard a city from artillery on the ground, it is improper, under those same circumstances, to bombard it from the air.
The agreement on radio involved the use of radio as a belligerent instrument, and guaranteed a certain measure of control over the use of radio by neutrals.
To summarize, we find that the political treaty, the four-power treaty, did away with the English-Japanese alliance, and substituted therefor an agreement of non-intervention by England, the United States, France and Japan. The conference also established a status quo giving to the Japanese a considerable advantage in the limitation of fortifications, giving Japan a double security. The Japanese supremacy, however, in continental Asia is considerably limited by her situation in the face of Russia. Moreover, the Japanese realize very strongly the effectiveness of the Chinese boycott. They want to control trade in China, and if they put too much pressure on, the boycott blocks them, and they are not free, under the four- power treaty, to alter the status quo without consultation with France, England, and the United States, which have their own interests to protect.
Many other things were urged at the conference. The Chinese were extremely anxious to put the Japanese out of Shantung, but the American delegation did not seriously press this point until the Senate intervened with a resolution, and it seemed that if the treaty were to get through the Senate something would have to be done about Shantung, so by yielding on this point and consenting to evacuate there, Japan was able to avoid all reference to Manchuria, and make herself more secure there.
So that the whole result of the conference was that for the advantage of Great Britain the treaty destroyed the threatened American supremacy on the seas and left Great Britain as the leading sea power in merchant fleet and in war fleet, for she is developing her cruiser class which the treaty left unlimited. Further, it released her from the Japanese alliance which Canada would no longer tolerate. With the limitation of armaments the United States consented to the four-power treaty by which Japan is made secure in her status quo on the continent of Asia until Russia offers an objection, or China herself becomes strong enough to do so. The United States made all the sacrifices by which the status quo is secured.
Note: It is the Four-Power Treaty by which the United States is now restraining the other powers from taking aggressive action in China.