THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE ON THE LIMITATION OF ARMAMENT

WELCOMING ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT HARDING.

AS a result of the International Conference on the Limitation of Armament, which met at Washington, November 12, 1921, on the invitation of President Warren G. Harding, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was abandoned in favor of a Four Power Pacific Alliance between Great Britain, France, Japan and the United States, and a consequent treaty which provided for a limitation of armaments "dispelled one [Japanese-American] war cloud on the horizon of a troubled world."

Here is President Harding's address of welcome to the delegates from Great Britain and her Dominions, France, Italy, Japan, China, Belgium, Portugal and the United States, followed by the notable address delivered by Secretary Hughes on assuming the chairmanship.

The concluding article is a summing-up of the work of the conference, which former Secretary of State Elihu Root made in an address before the American Society of International Law, April 27, 1922.

SPEAKING as official sponsor for the invitation, I think I may say the call [for this Conference on the Limitation of Armament] is not of the United States of America alone ; it is rather the spoken word of a war-wearied world, struggling for restoration, hungering and thirsting for better relationship; of humanity crying for relief and craving assurances of lasting peace.

It is easy to understand this world-wide aspiration. The glory of triumph, the rejoicing in achievement, the love of liberty, the devotion to country, the pangs of sorrow, the burdens of debt, the desolation of ruin all these are appraised alike in all lands. Here in the United States we are but freshly turned from the burial of an unknown American soldier, when a nation sorrowed while paying him tribute. Whether it was spoken or not, a hundred millions of our people were summarizing the inexcusable causes, the incalculable cost, the unspeakable sacrifices and the unutterable sorrows, and there was the ever impelling question: How can humanity justify or God forgive? Human hate demands no such toll; ambition and greed must be denied it. If misunderstanding must take the blame, then let us banish it, and let understanding rule and good-will be regnant everywhere. All of us demand liberty and justice. There cannot be one without the other, and they must be held the unquestioned possession of all peoples. Inherent rights are of God, and the tragedies of the world originate in their attempted denial. The world to-day is infringing their enjoyment by arming to defend or deny, when simple sanity calls for their recognition through common understanding.

Out of the cataclysm of the World War came new fellowships, new convictions, new aspirations. It is ours to make the most of them. A world staggering with debt needs its burden lifted. Humanity which has been shocked by wanton destruction would minimize the agencies of that destruction. Contemplating the measureless cost of war and the continuing burden of armament, all thoughtful peoples wish for real limitation of armament and would like war outlawed. In soberest reflection the world's hundreds of millions who pay in peace and die in war wish their statesmen to turn the expenditures for destruction into means of construction, aimed at a higher state for those who live and follow after.

It is not alone that the world cannot readjust itself and cast aside the excess of burdens without relief from the leaders of men. War has grown progressively cruel and more destructive from the first recorded conflict to this pregnant day, and the reverse order would more become our boasted civilization.

Gentlemen of the conference, the United States welcomes you with unselfish hands. We harbor no fears; we have no sordid ends to serve; we suspect no enemy; we contemplate or apprehend no conquests. Content with what we have, we seek nothing which is another's. We only wish to do with you that finer, nobler thing which no nation can do alone.

SECRETARY CHARLES EVANS HUGHES STATES THE OBJECTS OF THE CONFERENCE

THE President invited the Governments of the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan to participate in a conference on the subject of limitation of armament, in connection with which Pacific and Far Eastern questions would also be discussed. It would have been most agreeable to the President to have invited all the powers to take part in this conference, but it was thought to be a time when other considerations should yield to the practical requirements of the existing exigency, and in this view the invitation was extended to the group known as the principal Allied and Associated Powers, which, by reason of the conditions produced by the war, control in the main the armament of the world. The opportunity to limit armament lies within their grasp.

It was recognized, however, that the interests of other powers in the Far East made it appropriate that they should be invited to participate in the discussion of Pacific and Far Eastern problems, and, with the approval of the five powers, an invitation to take part in the discussion of those question has been extended to Belgium, China, the Netherlands and Portugal.

The inclusion of the proposal for the discussion of Pacific and Far Eastern questions was not for the purpose of embarrassing or delaying an agreement for limitation of armament, but rather to support that undertaking by availing ourselves of this meeting to endeavor to reach a common understanding as to the principles and policies to be followed in the Far East and thus greatly to diminish, and if possible wholly to remove, discernible sources of controversy. It is believed that by interchanges of views at this opportune time the Governments represented here may find a basis of accord and thus give expression to their desire to assure enduring friendship.

The proposal to limit armament by an agreement of the powers is not a new one, and we are admonished by the futility of earlier efforts. It may be well to recall the noble aspirations which were voiced 23 years ago in the imperial rescript of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia. It was then pointed out with clarity and emphasis that "the intellectual and physical strength of the nations, labor and capital are for the major part diverted from their natural application and unproductively consumed. Hundreds of millions are devoted to acquiring terrible engines of destruction, which, though today regarded as the last word of science, are destined to-morrow to lose all value in consequence of some fresh discovery in the same field. National culture, economic progress and the production of wealth are either paralyzed or checked in their development. Moreover, in proportion as the armaments of each power increase, so do they less and less fulfill the object which the Governments have set before themselves. The economic crises, due in great part to the system of armaments a l'outrance and the continual danger which lies in this massing of war materials, are transforming the armed peace of our days into a crushing burden which the peoples have more and more difficulty in bearing. It appears evident, then, that if this state of things were prolonged it would inevitably lead to the calamity which it is desired to avert, and the horrors of which make every thinking man shudder in advance. To put a end to these incessant armaments and to seek the means of warding off the calamities which are threatening the whole world such is the supreme duty which is to-day imposed on all states."

It was seven years later that the Secretary of State of the United States, Mr. Elihu Root, in answering a note of the Russian Ambassador suggesting in outline a programme of the second peace conference, said: "The Government of the United States, therefore, feels it to be its duty to reserve for itself the liberty to propose to the second peace conference as one of the subjects for consideration the reduction or limitation of armaments, in the hope that if nothing further can be accomplished some slight advance may be made toward the realization of the lofty conception which actuated the Emperor of Russia in calling the first conference." It is significant that the Imperial German Government expressed itself as "absolutely opposed to the question of disarmament" and that the Emperor of Germany threatened to decline to send delegates if the subject of disarmament was to be discussed. In view, however, of the resolution which had been adopted at the first Hague conference the delegates of the United States were instructed that the subject of limitation of armament "should be regarded as unfinished business, and that the second conference should ascertain and give full consideration to the results of such examination as the Governments may have given to the possibility of an agreement pursuant to the wish expressed by the first conference." But by reason of the obstacles which the subject had encountered, the second peace conference at The Hague, although it made notable progress in provision for the peaceful settlement of controversies, was unable to deal with limitation of armament except by a resolution in the following general terms: "The conference confirms the resolution adopted by the conference of 1899 in regard to the limitation of military expenditure; and inasmuch as military expenditure has considerably increased in almost every country since that time, the conference declares that it is eminently desirable that the Governments should resume the serious examination of this question."

This was the fruition of the efforts of eight years. Although the effect was clearly perceived, the race in preparation of armament, wholly unaffected by these futile suggestions, went on until it fittingly culminated in the greatest war of history ; and we are now suffering from the unparalleled loss of life, the destruction of hopes, the economic dislocations, and the widespread impoverishment which measure the cost of the victory over the brutal pretensions of military force.