Spade Work
SPADE WORK A S THIS is being written the naval conference is in such a tangle as to make more than one observer wish it had not been held, or at least that the fall of the first Tardieu Cabinet had...
...It is not impossible that the interval would have been both graceful and profitable...
...As it happens, some say unfortunately, the earth is not yet divided between John Bull and Uncle Sam...
...in January, as the hour of labor drew near, a difficult task...
...For it has shown conclusively enough that there must be an intensive preparation on the part of all nations concerned before another conference is held...
...It is not a cheery outlook, but we think that the pessimism of the spring may be as mistaken as the easy optimism of the fall...
...Months before it had been attempted, it was considered an easy task...
...It is plain that official America had only the vaguest understanding of the French claims, just as official France had been ridiculously misled as to the character of the negotiations between Premier MacDonald and President Hoover...
...MacDonald to explain the accident plausibly, everything gained...
...That is something...
...It is well to do the spade work before you seed the garden.arden...
...It is the Italian longing for African expansion, they argue, which largely necessitates a great French navy, which in turn necessitates a bigger British fleet, which cancels hope for limitation at the Rapidan level...
...The problems have been found more complicated than we thought them, and the solutions proposed have a most disconcerting way of upsetting solutions previously arrived at...
...He is a poor statesman who is whipped by the unexpected...
...Today the English are displeased with the French, the Japanese with the Americans, even England and America, so dovish toward each other as the conference opened, have become more like two black crows...
...in March, an impossible task...
...The London conference has not gone smoothly because the work which would have permitted it to proceed with some rapidity toward a satisfactory conclusion had not been done beforehand...
...At any rate, seen in the light of present affairs, nothing would have been lost, and with Mr...
...SPADE WORK A S THIS is being written the naval conference is in such a tangle as to make more than one observer wish it had not been held, or at least that the fall of the first Tardieu Cabinet had been seized as an opportunity to adjourn it indefinitely...
...Yet that is not a perfectly sound reason for rejecting the whole business...
...We understand each other better now...
...And so instead of proclaiming that the first two months of the London conference have been altogether a waste of time and money, let us admit that we have learned something from it...
...Preliminary conversations of the character of those between MacDonald, Dawes and Hoover would have gone far toward removing the obstacles which now appear so mountainous at London...
...Great Britain and America were in the mood to accomplish great things, but neither had sufficiently taken into account what might be the attitude of the other nations...
...The rest of the year might have been devoted to home work, and when five nations are attempting to find a military agreement which, in proportion to their sizes, will mean security and parity for all, perhaps ten months is not too long a time for meditation...
...And the temper of the French has not been improved by the fact that their position has aroused a general resentment, while permitting Italy, which entered the conference a suspect, substantially to better her reputation...
...This one has been handicapped from the first by the lack of such preparation...
...Of course it has been obvious since the love fest on the Rapidan that if Great Britain and the United States were the only nations to be considered we should have no submarines, few destroyers, hardly any cruisers, and no battleships (except a few good ones...
...Accordingly, the task at London has been to limit the fleets of five nations (reduction having become an archaic word in the naval lexicon) by an agreement which could later be adapted as the starting point for a general disarmament conference, talked of these many years...
...To the French the situation is as sad as this: that it is the Italians who have caused all the trouble, and the French who are getting all the blame...
Vol. 11 • April 1930 • No. 22
