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The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, September 1923

The Vital Need — Towards A Foreign Policy

page 19

The Vital Need

Towards A Foreign Policy

(The following article, we are informed by the writer, has been refused by most of the respectable papers in New Zealand: it is therefore printed in "The Spike." The editor of one of the foregoing papers further remarked that he agreed with it entirely, but it wasn't the policy of his paper to publish that sort of thing. We beg any reader of "The Spike" "who may be annoyed at our hammering away at the apparently delicate subject, to bear this in mind.—Editor "Spike.")

There are some people who never grow after they reach the age of five, and there are others whose views are as unchanging as the Pyramids. Such people seem utterly incapable of profiting by experience; their attitude is childish and illogical, based upon utter lack of a capacity to discover the truth or to appreciate that truth when discovered. The man who fails to learn from experience is a mental dwarf, just as pitiable as any physical enormity, but, when he happens to be in public, life, a great deal more dangerous. And that is the type of man who is at present controlling the life of the Dominion in so far as it is governed by our relations with the lands overseas.

The vital need in this Dominion is that the people should formulate some sort of a policy in foreign affairs. Tucked away in an isolation less splendid than effective, the war found us in a state of mental inertia due to three decades of easy money-making. It left us with a heightened national consciousness, perhaps possessing that consciousness for the first time, and it should have left us with a definite attitude in foreign affairs. But it did not. Far from learning anything by the revelations of the appalling blunders of British diplomacy after 1914, our Government cheerfully accepts the responsibility of committing the country to support those blunders with blood and treasure. Thus in September of last year, during the Near-Eastern crisis when Lloyd George sent out his s.o.s. to the Dominions, Mr. Massey, with a superb gesture, proclaims "There can be only one possible answer," and immediately offers an expeditionary force. Canada, on the other hand, a country whose loyalty to the Empire is unquestioned, flatly refuses to support Great Britain in a quarrel of which she does not know the details. South Africa also stands out. And in February last the Canadian Premier in a speech in the House revealed an amazing state of affairs. The first intimation of Great Britain's invitation to them to send a contingent to ensure the "freedom of the Straits" was received in the Canadian press! Following this came a London dispatch in which the British Government stated that both France and Italy endorsed Britain's action—absolutely untrue, this, as both Powers had refused to do anything of the sort and had left General Harington unsupported at Chanak, withdrawing their troops from the danger-zone. But the matter did not end there. The Canadian Government (unlike our own for which there was "only one possible answer") desired to summon the. House of Parliament to consider the grave position which had arisen. The British Cabinet, on receipt of this suggestion replied that it could not see the necessity for doing any such thing. The Canadian Premier also explained that the dispatch asking for page 20 Canada's aid was '"the first and only intimation" that he had received that matters in the Near East had readied a critical stage. He said, too, that he had repeatedly made application to both the Lloyd George Government and the present one that he should be permitted to lay the whole correspondence before the Canadian House and that the British Government, in a manner clear and emphatic, had indicated that it did not wish this done.

And now as to the events which led up to the crisis in the Near East, In May, 1919), with the approval of Lloyd George and Lord Curzon, a Greek army was sent to Smyrna, in violation of the armistice signed at Mudros on October 30th of the preceding year. It engaged upon work of wholesale destruction and every form of outrage. And, after lauding under Allied protection, it gamed a victory in which it ultimately reaped as "the spoils of war" the provinces of Smyrna and Thrace. At the same time Mesopotamia and Palestine became British mandates and Syria went to France. Within a very few weeks Mustapha Kemal was in charge of Turkey's future, officially recognised by the National Assembly, and engaged on the work of reorganisation, and soon, though a non-representative Government in Constantinople signed the terms imposed by the Treaty of Sevres (which practically meant Allied control of Turkey), the forces in the interior were more powerful than before. The end of the year saw Lloyd George proclaiming his pro-Greek opinions and the beginning of a new Greek offensive. By July, 1921, the Greeks had made a great advance which was rounded off by the capture of Eskisheir, and the British Prime Minister was stating that the Sevres Treaty was "a scrap of paper," and that Greece "was entitled to the full fruits of her victory." But the battle of Sakaria resulted in the defeat of the Greeks and the position of their army became more and more precarious. Venizelos had visited London (on pleasure!) before the beginning of the final Greek attack, and now Gounaris was appealing to Curzon for money and munitions. None were, forthcoming; but he was told to hang on, while Cabinet was quite determined that the Greek army should remain in Asia Minor and that the Kemalists were unable to attack. This Greek army, meantime, was short of supplies, ill-clad, with its morale going or gone.

But the public was still in the dark. Even when Lord .Reading protested strongly against depriving Turkey of Constantinople, Smyrna and Thrace, and the Hon. E. Montague, Secretary of State for India, resigned, few people knew what was going on. After preposterous terms (including the demilitarisation of the Dardanelles) had been proposed, Fethi Hey was sent to London with power to offer the terms which, almost without alteration, were accepted by the Allies subsequently at Lausanne. He was refused an interview with any of the Cabinet, which was confident of the superiority of the Greek soldiery. In consequence, and following on violent abuse of Tin-key by Lloyd George in the House of Commons, the Turkish attack was made and the Greek army utterly broken. In ten days the Turks were again in Smyrna, and within the week Lloyd George was announcing that Britain would oppose by force any attempt on the part of the Kemalists to enter a "neutral zone" which had never been recognised by an authoritative Turkish Government as such. And then, after Canada, South Africa, Italy and France had refused to stand by Great Britain, or rather by the British Government, Lloyd George announced that Turkey was page 21 to blame for the whole business and that the National Government in England had averted a war in the Near East!

What the British thought of the matter was shown by the wave of feeling which forced Lloyd George to resign. What the Greeks thought they showed by standing Gounaris and the rest against a wall and shooting them. The Lausanne Conference in November resulted in Curzon being forced to back down and the trouble for the moment was over. But we in New Zealand are a long way removed from such waves of feeling. To our Cabinet the British Government is the British Government, and in matters of foreign policy apparently it can do no wrong. At the present moment we are absolutely at the mercy of the prejudice or incompetence of a Minister in London. And even such a record of political trickery, incompetence and lying as has been revealed by the expose of the Near East seems not to have influenced our own Government in the slightest degree. For them there is still "only one possible answer," and it is likely that this state of affairs will continue "until the growth of public opinion forces them to display a little national consciousness and not be tied helplessly to the apronstrings of any foolish and possibly corrupt government which may be in power at Home. British diplomacy, and particularly secret diplomacy, has recently received some consideration in the House, mainly as the result of Labour Party criticism. And the Hon. Downie Stewart has spoken of the inevitability of "gentlemen's agreements.' Here is a list of the treaties broken by the recent British Government in the past four years because it suited them: The secret agreement with the Sheriff of Mecca (1915); the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907 concerning Persia; the Treaty of London in its reference to Albania; Point 2 and Point 12 of the Fourteen Points accepted as a basis for peace; the Mudros Armistice terms; and Article 22 (with special reference to Turkey) in the League of Nations Covenant. This is by no means complete. But it is. sufficient to show that the recent British Government did not keep its word in public, and it is a fair assumption that its secret agreements received as short a shrift. More, the Treaty of Sevres, under which the "neutral zone" which we were asked to defend was created was discredited by its principals even before it was signed. Millerand was assailed violently and accused of making sacrifices to Britain, while the astute Nitti anticipated criticism by announcing that he was aware that the treaty was wrong and of no value because it was signed by the representatives of governments which had no control over the territories ceded (among them the puppet Turkish Government). The return of King Constantine was seized, upon by the French (who regarded it as a national insult) as an opportunity to revise the Treaty and to encourage Turkish resistance.

These are the conflicting streams of policy in which our simple statesmen with their pathetic trust in British politicians are engulfed. But our position is much simpler. We do not need to entertain definite ideas as to the morality of the British policy in China or in Russia; but we do need men who will make it their business to know just what is happening abroad and what Britain's position may be. We do need to know whether or not to stand by a British Government without entering into an utterly unjust war such as a campaign against the Kemalists would have been. And we have the right to demand that on a future occasion such page 22 a step shall not be taken by a Cabinet vastly ignorant of foreign relations or by Mr. Massey (Lloyd George, Curzon, and Birkenhead outwit ten men of Mr. Massey's type every morning), but shall at least be submitted to Parliament, as was done in Canada. For, though Lloyd George has gone, Lord Curzon is still in office, and Lord Curzon was the man who, in March, 1922, advised Greece to keep their army in Asia Minor, and to whom Gounaris wrote for supplies.

More than ever, then, more than the domestic or economic situation, does this matter call urgently for attention, the attention, not of one or two Labour members, who seem the only men in the House with any information or ideas on foreign relations, if one can judge from speeches; but of the whole nation.

C.Q.P.