ABSTRACT
Nations to the full, remains an enthusiastic and unrepentant believer in the British Commonwealth of Nations. The time may come when the League of Nations may be able to induce world opinion to create an organic system which will end war by creating the machinery necessary to adjust international problems by constitutional and legal means. When that time comes we can cheerfully merge the British in a world Commonwealth. In the meanwhile the British Commonwealth not only gives freedom and security to its members, but … so far from impeding progress towards that ideal, helps enormously towards it. [ … ]
What the world needs now is not more self-determination, more Balkanisation, but some measure of unity. The greatest cause of war to-day is that self-centred nationalism that refuses all association or comradeship or partnership with other nations. There is only one instance of peoples rising above this devastating and unchristian passion, and that is the British Commonwealth. Yet that unity is based, not upon coercion or authority, but upon the exercise of a free choice. If the nations of the British Commonwealth cannot resist the Balkanising tendency and maintain their unity, what hope is there of the League of Nations giving unity to nations divided by race, language and colour? For if the League is to be effective, it will not be merely because 70 suspicious and selfish nations agree to sit round a table, but because it develops a spirit of brotherhood and self-sacrifice among its members, a sense of living for something greater than themselves, which will lift them to the level of subordinating their separate ambitions to the common good, and of shouldering their share of the responsibility of maintaining world peace. Where does that spirit exist to-day, except among the nations of the Commonwealth which sprang to arms directly the Prussian challenge was thrown down, and brought men by the hundred thousand from the ends of the earth in defence of human freedom? From every point of view, therefore, whether from that of freedom and self-
defence, or of exerting influence for peace and sanity in the conduct of the world’s affairs, or of helping forward the League of Nations in its drive for world unity and world peace, it seems to The Round Table that the unity of the Commonwealth ought to be preserved. [ … ]
Ever since the Treaty of Paris in 1783 it has been an axiom of British statesmanship to keep on friendly relations with the United States of America. The motives for this policy have varied from time to time. In the earlier days the reasons were partly sentimental and partly the fact that, in the event of war, Canada would be extremely vulnerable. Later there was added the reason that the United States had herself become an international Power of the most formidable kind. The policy of friendship was put to a severe strain during the Napoleonic era, when it broke down for a time in 1812, and again during the American Civil War. It has by no means always been a popular policy in
Great Britain, for often the so-called ruling classes have had but little sympathy with either the international manners or the domestic methods of the eldest daughter of their own civilisation and stock. None the less, with a singular persistence, uncommon in the foreign policy of any nation, Great Britain has remained faithful to the tradition that war with the United States must be ruled out of the category of contemplated possibilities, and that her own policy must be regulated accordingly. Never was the policy of friendship pursued more faithfully than by Sir
Edward Grey during the difficult blockade controversies which preceded the entry of the United States into the great war, and by Mr. Lloyd George during the Peace Conference at Paris and the negotiations which later led to the Washington Conference and to the treaties concluded there for the limitation of naval armaments and for the regulation of the Pacific. The case for such a policy had been immensely strengthened by all that had happened in those eventful years. On the one hand, a war between Great Britain and the United States would not only put the British Commonwealth to such internal and external strain that its existence might be seriously impaired, but it would probably draw half the nations of the world into the struggle and destroy Western civilisation itself. On the other hand, co-operation between the Englishspeaking nations of the world in supporting the League of Nations or some similar organisation for the settlement of international disputes by sensible means would bring a political experience and an amount of financial and naval power to the support of world law and world peace which would probably ensure that mankind would never again have to suffer from so protracted a disaster as the world war of 1914-18. [ … ] The simple truth is that it is very difficult for Great Britain and the United
States to understand one another. Great Britain has long been well educated in international politics. One of her main characteristics is a high sense of public duty both in domestic and international affairs. Her instinctive judgment that the peace and political progress of the world depend upon an intelligent co-operation by the English-speaking nations with the rest of the world in a league of all nations is indestructibly sound. The United States, on the other hand, has for 150 years been educated in exactly the contrary idea, that it is her duty to keep the rest of the world at a distance – under the Monroe doctrine – so that she can work out her own contribution to the political and social life of the world free from interference. The whole notion that she has a duty to co-operate actively with the hardened sinners of Europe in securing world peace still seems to her traditionalists to be contrary to the Monroe doctrine, and it will clearly take time for a nation of 120,000,000 people to realise the new responsibilities which power and modern invention have thrust upon them – they are really the logical outcome of the Monroe doctrine – and to make up their minds how they are to discharge them. These differences make understanding difficult. For instance, to the American,
who is dedicated to the idea that it is the primary duty of man to govern himself and support himself economically, and who knows nothing about the
conditions of Asia or Africa, Great Britain appears to be incurably imperialistic, as proved by the vast amount of territory and peoples she has brought under her control all over the world. To the Briton, who is dedicated to the idea that the performance of public duties must come before the attainment of personal success, America appears incurably selfish as a nation and wedded to the sordid pursuit of the almighty dollar. Yet to the first charge the Briton replies that he does not seek empire for the sake of bossing his neighbours, but because the substitution of political order for chaos is the first and necessary step towards liberty and self-government, as well as towards better trade. And to the second charge the American replies that he is far more interested in developing an economic system which will abolish the slums and poverty which still disfigure Britain, and will create order out of economic chaos, than in accumulating dollars for himself. The truth is that there are mixed motives on both sides, that Great Britain is mainly busy about politics while America is mainly concerned with economics, and that the solution both of the political and the economic problem is essential to the peace and prosperity of mankind. None the less it is becoming more and more obvious every day that it is
only a question of time for the United States to play her full part in the international world. That she is slow in making up her mind to act may be annoying to the rest of the world. But it is not reasonable to expect a nation of 120,000,000 people, utterly inexperienced in international affairs and with a century and a half of tradition in favour of isolation, to plunge into almost unlimited international responsibilities at President Wilson’s command. No doubt, too, when she does emerge once more from her isolation, as she emerged in 1917, her policy will differ in emphasis and detail from Great Britain’s, just as President Wilson’s definition of war aims differed from Mr. Asquith’s. But there is not an atom of evidence to show that in fundamental moral or political purpose the policies of the two peoples will not run just as much on parallel and sympathetic lines as they did during the great war and the Peace Conference. Great Britain will, for instance, always be actively interested in Europe. The United States, on the other hand, like the Dominions, will probably insist that her active co-operation must be confined to problems which are real world problems and that Europe must manage her own internal problems for herself. Again, the American approach to international problems will be mainly economic, while the British approach is mainly political. But these are matters of detail. The fundamental thing is that the hope of
world peace depends upon the English-speaking nations co-operating actively with the other nations in establishing order, justice and reason where international chaos now largely reigns, and that public opinion in the United States is steadily moving in that direction. [ … ]
The ninth Imperial Conference has come and gone. It was heralded in the Press of two hemispheres in every tone of hope, scepticism and apprehension; and its accomplished work has since been described in widely divergent estimates. The apprehension arose from a too ready acceptance of certain demands at their face value and from the consequent doubt whether any formula – even the most innocuous – could possibly secure the assent, let us say, of General Hertzog and Mr. Coates. The subsequent divergence of estimate was mainly a question of attitude. Those who consider only realities have accepted the estimate of The Times, that the Imperial Conference ‘has provided an agreed and authoritative picture of the Empire as it is’. And, on the other hand, those who, with a relish for ‘imponderables’, find greater significance in a ‘state of mind’, will not quarrel with the description of Lord Balfour’s Report as the Magna Charta of Commonwealth Liberties. The Round Table, true to its function and its name, accepts both the objective and the subjective estimates as indispensable facets of one and the same truth. ‘L’Angleterre’, says M. Henry de Jouvenel, ‘a reconquis ses Dominions en
les émancipant’, or, to put it in the more controversial words of another commentator, ‘till there is full freedom to separate there can be no spontaneous will to remain united’. These imperfect epigrams state a psychological truth which has a great political significance. They are not equally true of all parts of the Commonwealth, for each part has its own ‘state of mind’; but they are true, in different measure, for all, because they reveal the immanent principle – now authoritatively proclaimed – on which the whole Commonwealth rests. Equality of status has been sought and found in Dominion autonomy; and the strength of our unique constitutional structure lies in the fact that it combines the benefits of union with those of independence. The Imperial Conference of 1926 has dissolved the Downing Street ‘complex’, and the Commonwealth is now, in very truth, a Round Table. Now, in acknowledging gratefully that Lord Balfour and his colleagues have
done good Imperial service, let us take stock of the new position, if indeed it be new. To be sure, none of the principles are new: the novelty lies in the explicit recognition of the conclusions to which they logically lead. What, then, are the essential features of this ‘authoritative picture of the Empire as it is’? The British Empire is unique; it defies classification: and it bears no resem-
blance to any known political organisation. Its principal figures –Great Britain
and the Dominions – ‘are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations’. Equality of status is thus the root principle, ‘but the principles of equality and similarity, appropriate to status, do not universally extend to function. Here we require something more than immutable dogmas’. In other words, we must recognise facts. And the recognition of facts, in one vital region, at all events, follows at a later stage in the Report, where the Conference unanimously recognises ‘that in this sphere [i.e. foreign affairs generally],2 as in the sphere of defence, the major share of responsibility rests, and must for some time continue to rest, with His Majesty’s Government in Great Britain’. These two passages, read together with the paragraph on ‘Negotiation’, and
with the references to the Policy of Locarno, are as important as anything in the whole record of the Conference. These passages make no reference to any general and mutual obligation which might follow action under the negotiation clause, but they appear to warrant the conclusion that, though the active share in war rests in the unfettered discretion of each Government, the inevitable status of belligerency at times when Great Britain or any other part of the Empire is at war was, by inference at least, assumed in the Conference. Let us note that the initiative leading to war is entrusted to each and every self-governing partner in the Commonwealth as an essential function of equality of status in domestic and external affairs. It follows that, in the discharge of this virtually sovereign function, each partner in proposing to act in its own interest, ought so to act as to conserve the interests of the whole. This obligation underlies the whole accepted procedure for the negotiation of foreign treaties. Here is unity in belligerency, accepted so to speak in embryo. But, since war
is only the pursuit of policy by special means, the pursuit of policy ab initio must imply a general unity of purpose capable of definition for particular major issues. We believe that there is a real though undefined unity of purpose, and that the forces animating it are so powerful that no Dominion Government can ignore them. It is true that recent history still leaves a good deal of evidence of disunity too prominently in the foreground, but time will correct this perspective by revealing to all concerned the true character of our Imperial relations. And it is because the Imperial Conference has described these relations in a lucid and authoritative statement that its achievement, both practically and psychologically, stands high. Now, our unity of purpose can be stated in terms which easily command
universal assent so long as they express the general philosophy of the Commonwealth. It is the descent from the general to the particular that is our difficulty. Let us consider the matter once more in the light of its most recent test. Diplomatic unity, which is only unity of purpose canalised towards an immediate aim, implies consultation and agreement as the preparation for action. The theory of our diplomatic unity held good for a while after the war,
but suffered a serious reverse at Locarno. The preparation for Locarno actually entailed nothing but the supply of information to the Dominions of what Great Britain proposed to do. There was no effective consultation and no agreement. From that General Smuts drew the conclusion that, if the Locarno method became a precedent, ‘more and more the foreign policy of the British Government would become simply that of Great Britain.’ [ … ] The Commonwealth must be something more than a picture of the British
nations enjoying free institutions: it must show a positive purpose. There can be no more positive aim in the modern world than the estab-
lishment of peace on new international foundations. It has often been said that peace is the greatest of British interests, and never was that truism truer than it is to-day. Only in the last resort of war can any real peril now assail the British Empire; and, therefore, both as an insurance for our interests, and as an expression of the inner spirit of our own family relations, the League of Nations is an instrument peculiarly appropriate to our peaceful purpose. Without it, the world would be condemned to a precarious reliance on safeguards which provide no safety. The League is a world-wide organisation, and the absence of Russia and
the United States only serves to throw into bolder relief its well-nigh all-embracing character. None the less, it is not a vessel of unlimited capacity; and to use it as a vat in which to blend all the discordant elements of the world, is to court disappointment. If it has great possibilities, it has also its limitations; and those who recognise both aspects of its character do it no disservice. The British Commonwealth is committed, irrevocably and sincerely, to its underlying principle; but in contemplating the magnitude and the multiplicity of the problems which are gradually being placed within its jurisdiction, we cannot fail to see that it will soon be beyond the power of any Member-State to bear a responsibility, proportionate to its power, in all the obligations which may arise. Every State will have its own geographical sense of proportion; and if Great Britain loses hers by becoming a predominantly European State, she may lose her overseas perspective and strain her relations with the Dominions. She cannot help being a great World-State and must play a part in the League commensurate with her responsibilities and with her history. But the nature of her responsibilities and the lesson of her history alike warn her that no regional obligation should be permitted to overshadow her general mission. Her influence in Europe will be the more decisive if she confines her commitments to issues of first-rate importance which, by their very nature, are something more than a purely European concern. A policy based on these principles should secure the willing assent of the
Dominions. If properly executed it will express the spirit of Locarno, but not the method; but before it can be executed it must be conceived as the offspring of the Commonwealth as a whole, and not merely the child of Great Britain. To-day it is no more than a project, unembodied and without form; and it can only find its true embodiment through the process of organised consultation upon which the British Commonwealth ought to embark forthwith.
