CHAPTER XXIX ARMAMENTS, TARIFFS AND TOLLS Great Britain and the United States probably understood each other better during the Embassy of Whitelaw Reid than they had ever done before. The sympathy of Great Britain during the Spanish-American War had brought the two peoples closely together; the imperial responsibilities which the United States undertook as a consequence of that war inclined thoughtful Americans to sympathise with the principles and policy of the British Empire. The Governments of the two countries had, in addition, a common, active interest in promoting the peace of the world. When the Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in December, 1898, invited the States of the world to send delegates to a Peace Conference at The Hague, John Hay, at that time Secretary of State for the United States, responded as enthusiastically as any of the States of the Old World.1 The First Hague Conference, which met in 1899, accomplished solid work; and the extent to which the British and United States Governments appreciated this work is proved by the use which they subsequently made of The Hague Tribunal to settle their differences. When the Second Hague Conference was being arranged for in 1906 (it actually met in 1907), the British and American Governments co-operated in the difficult work of finding a suitable date. A more important point than the question of date was the attitude of Great Britain and the United States towards the question of disarmament. As Sir Edward Grey, who was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, explained to Reid, Germany held the "key of the situation," at any rate on the Continent of Europe: for if Germany continued her great armaments, France would 1 See Instructions to the American Delegates to The Hague Conference, 1899, issued by John Hay, April 18, 1899 (World Peace Foundation, Pamphlet Series, vol. III, No. 4). certainly, and of necessity, follow suit. The British Government was in favour of disarmament, but it was bound to safeguard the Empire with a great Navy. Secretary of State Root, an idealist, and an enthusiast for the rule of international law, did not let his idealism blind him to the logic of facts. He wrote to Ambassador Reid: I do not want this Liberal Government, with which in many matters I have such hearty sympathy, to go to any maudlin extremes at The Hague Conference. It is eminently wise and proper that we should take real steps in advance towards the policy of minimising the chances of war amongst civilised people, of multiplying the methods and chances of honourably avoiding war in the event of controversy; but we must not grow sentimental and commit some Jefferson-Bryan-like piece of idiotic folly such as would be entailed if the free people that have the free governments put themselves at a hopeless disadvantage compared with military despotisms and military barbarisms. I should like to see the British Navy kept at its present size, but only on condition that the Continental and Japanese navies are not built up.1 Great Britain and the United States joined their efforts in the campaign against the misuse of opium. In 1906 the Imperial Chinese Government had decreed that the cultivation of the opiumpoppy should be diminished by one-tenth each year, until it disappeared altogether. In 1907 the Government of British India undertook to diminish the production of opium annually to the same extent as the Chinese Government enforced the diminution. About a year later Whitelaw Reid was instructed by Secretary Root to obtain, if possible, the support of Great Britain for the proposal to hold an Opium Conference at Shanghai. The Foreign Office at once responded, and helped the State Department to bring about the International Conference at Shanghai in February, 1909. The Conference took measures leading to the restriction of opium-smoking in foreign settlements in China; and Japan undertook not to export morphia to China. The trade in opium and in the drugs made from opium was thenceforward persistently and successfully controlled, until the growing feebleness of the unfortunate Chinese Republic (which overturned the Imperial Manchu Government in 1910) allowed the trade to arise again, with evil effects not merely for China, but unfortunately for the United States too. For after the suppression of alcoholism in the United States, the illicit trade in opiates from the East increased 1 August 7, 1906, in Cortissoz, op. cit., II, 343. in activity, and made urgently necessary renewed efforts at international co-operation. The International Convention signed by the representatives of Great Britain, the United States, and other Powers at The Hague, in January, 1912, did not have all the results that were hoped for.1 One of the last duties of Ambassador Reid was to plane away any obstacles in the way of President Taft's projected Treaty of Arbitration with Great Britain. It was to be a Treaty of General Arbitration, by which disputes between the two countries, even disputes affecting national honour, should be automatically submitted to a Tribunal. The United States Senate, however, which has the constitutional duty of controlling the making of treaties, did not see its way to assenting to this carte blanche instrument; so it never came into effect. The British Government had done all that it could to meet the views of the United States. When, acting on the instructions of Secretary of State Knox, Whitelaw Reid suggested to Sir Edward Grey the difficulty of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Alliance, Sir Edward's grave face suddenly brightened. There would be no difficulty there. It is true that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance obliged Great Britain to go to the assistance of Japan, if that State were attacked by a third Power, but the Foreign Secretary had foreseen the difficulty from the first, and it had been agreed upon [with Japan] that whenever a satisfactory treaty of general arbitration between Great Britain and the United States was negotiated, the article in question in the Anglo-Japanese Treaty would be revised so as to make it of no effect with any country with which England had a general treaty of arbitration.2 A stipulation to this precise effect was actually inserted in the text of the renewed Anglo-Japanese Treaty of July 13, 1911.3 This was taken as a specific indication of the good relations which the British Secretary of State and the American Ambassador had maintained, and of the harmony existing between their countries; 1 The Convention is in Parliamentary Papers, 1913, CXXI, p. 63 ff. 2 Cortissoz, op. cit., II, 427. 66 3 Article 4: Should either High Contracting Party conclude a treaty of general arbitration with a third Power, it is agreed that nothing in this Agreement shall entail upon such Contracting Party an obligation to go to war with the Power with whom such treaty of arbitration is in force" (text in British and Foreign State Papers, vol. 104, pp. 173-4). Y "that much remained to console Reid for the untoward fortunes of the President's humane project at large." " 1 On the other side of the Atlantic, one of the great successes of Mr. Bryce was the negotiation of the "Boundary Waters Treaty" with the United States, signed at Washington on January 11, 1909, and duly ratified. This Treaty made for ever open to navigation, to the commerce of both countries, all the lakes and rivers along which the international boundary of Canada and the United States passes. Furthermore, a Joint High Commission of Six was established, consisting of three members on the part of the United States, appointed by the President, and three on the part of the United Kingdom, appointed by His Majesty on the recommendation of the Governor-General of Canada. This Commission was to have jurisdiction over all obstructions or diversions which should in the future be made in the boundary waters." Besides negotiating this Treaty, Mr. Bryce had much other important work to do before he was succeeded at the Washington Embassy by Sir Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice. There was only one diplomatic undertaking which went wrong during the time of the Mission of Whitelaw Reid; and the result was probably for the good of both the United States and the British Empire. In any case, the affair did not especially concern Reid: it was carried out between Ottawa and Washington.3 In 1909 the Payne-Aldrich Tariff-which was also President Taft's Tariff-passed through Congress and became law in the United States. This enactment very substantially increased the customs charged upon imports; but it had two rates, a maximum tariff for imports from countries which gave no favours to the United States, and a minimum tariff. The benefit of this minimum tariff was to be given to any countries whose fiscal system did not unduly discriminate against the United States. As Canada had recently concluded a preferential Tariff Convention with France, a fear was felt by Canadians that they might not obtain the benefit of the United States minimum tariff. This idea made them favourably inclined to undertake negotiations with the State Department at Washington. President Taft on his side was anxious to go farther than merely 1 Cortissoz, op. cit., II, 418. 2 Text in British and Foreign State Papers, vol. 102, p. 137. giving the benefit of the minimum tariff to Canada. He wanted a reciprocal trade agreement, similar to that which had lapsed in 1867. 66 In his Message to Congress, January 26, 1911, the President wrote: One by one the controversies, resulting from the uncertainties which attended the partition of British territory in the American Continent at the close of the Revolution have been eliminated." 1 Mr. Taft proposed therefore to confirm the existing good relations between the British people and the people of the United States by arranging commercial reciprocity across the Canadian border: "A reciprocal trade agreement," he wrote, "is the logical sequence of all that has been accomplished in disposing of matters of a diplomatic and controversial character. The identity of interests of two peoples linked together by race, language, political institutions and geographical proximity offers the foundation." There was already, he pointed out, a reciprocal movement of settlers across the border: "The contribution to the industrial advancement of our own country by the migration across the borders of the thrifty and industrious Canadians of English, Scotch and Irish origin is now repaid by the movement of large numbers of our own sturdy farmers to the north-west of Canada." The object of the President was purely economic. The development of the United States had reached a stage at which, instead of being a country which exported "food and the natural products of farm and forest," it was in danger of having to import these products from the outside world. "Ought we not, then," argued the President, "to arrange a commercial agreement with Canada, if we can, by which we shall get direct access to her great supply of natural products, without an obstructive or prohibitive tariff? The argument was concluded with something of a solemn warning: The Dominion [of Canada] has greatly prospered. It has an active, aggressive and intelligent people. They are coming to the parting of the ways. They must soon decide whether they are to regard themselves as isolated permanently from our markets by a perpetual wall, or whether we are to be commercial friends.2 Quoted by Egerton, British Colonial Policy in the Twentieth Century (1922), pp. 83-4. * The quotations from the Presidential Message are taken from Egerton, op. cit., p. 84 ff. |