London: 1930
LONDON: 1930 THERE will be no more important news this month than the opening of the general naval conference at London, and optimism over its outcome is such that even the memory of the Geneva...
...And then the big-navy propagandists who sought to discredit the Geneva Conference at every turn have themselves been so thoroughly discredited as to create a general wish for another conference in which their pressure would not be felt...
...Regardless of relative strength, an entirely different character of navy is required to patrol Japan's islands than is needed to look after the coast line and the territorial possessions of the United States...
...During these two years, which might so easily have been two years of apathy and resignation, the forces of peace have really been more active than ever before...
...This conference must seek an agreement between five powers, each of which has its peculiar needs...
...This, certainly, is not one of the slighter contributions to the hope of disarmament...
...And so we expect handsome results from the conference at London...
...LONDON: 1930 THERE will be no more important news this month than the opening of the general naval conference at London, and optimism over its outcome is such that even the memory of the Geneva Conference of 1927 fails to depress it...
...The Kellogg pact has been inaugurated, and has begun to accumulate a rather substantial prestige...
...Much of the credit for that, of course, goes to President Hoover and to Premier MacDonald, for whatever else was accomplished by their famous conversations, they did create a friendly background for the conference, and set up for it a prediction of success...
...Japan, France, Italy, Great Britain and the United States will attempt to adjust differences, and establish compromises in the same reasonable way in which Mr...
...London's advantage over Geneva is that during these two years we have really begun to understand something about these special needs...
...Also we are beginning to comprehend, however slowly, the truth in the statement that, if the nations dependent chiefly upon armies are willing to accept smaller navies, then the nations dependent chiefly upon navies can afford to accept smaller fleets themselves...
...Many of the obstacles to success at Geneva have been removed, most conspicuously the disagreement on what should constitute parity in cruiser strength, a quarrel over which the Geneva Conference directly came to grief...
...MacDonald reached an agreement on cruiser parity last fall.fall...
...Hoover and Mr...
...Certain hindrances are out of the way and, what is equally important, the conference will open in a more cordial temper than did any of its predecessors...
...And this means not only that we know more of England's needs than we did, and England of ours, but that we know more of our own, and the English of their own...
...How insuperable this difficulty appeared in those days...
...if it is possible to open another, in an atmosphere of sympathy and good feeling, two years after that failure...
...We have long ago seen that this is much more complex than a problem of ratios...
...The basic problem, of course, remains the same...
...For we know now that the desire for peace in the world must be sincere and widespread if the suspicions and disappointments in which the Geneva Conference ended did not put an end to such assemblages forever...
Vol. 11 • January 1930 • No. 9
