Whenever United States diplomats are re~ proached with the fundamental selfishness of policy of isolation, and the suggestion made that for many years they have been enjoying the benefits of a world order without shar~ ing In any of the responsibilities they have been accustomed to challenge the assumption on four counts, 'The United States disarma~ ment policy has been positive, so has her good neighbour policy, so has her reciprocal trade policy, so has her monetary policy' embodied in the tripartite agreement. each of these spheres the United States has: attempted to get something done, instead stating what she would like to see happen as in the Open Door policy, in which the United States announced that she would like! to see equality of trade in the Far East, the Monroe policy in which she states that she: would not like to see any other power establish new territorial acquisitions in the western hemisphere and the non-recognition policy which dodges the issue of. what should be done if an American policy was violated by stating that in such a case the United States would refuse to recognize the conditions brought about by the crime. There is of course always a possibility that an infringement of what might be termed these static doctrines would lead to positive action, but in the case of the other four policies an active programme is continually being pressed forward.
Why, ask American diplomats, have not the beneficent effects of these policies brought about a better world? Why have they not achieved success? And the answer is plain and disquieting. They have not achieved success because they have been met at every turn by the deliberate and actively pursued hostility of one nation, Germany. Two other nations which must be associated with her, Italy and Japan, would without German inspiration and support have been far less of a disturbing influence. Germany is the nation which is thwarting American policy and the fact is made clear by Germany's appearance in splendid isolation upon the Black List of nations which do not share the benefits of tariff reductions made under the reciprocal trade programme, by the relish with which the names of German high officials were disclosed in the espionage trial, by the refusal to supply Germany with helium for her trans-Atlantic service and in many smaller ways.
Germany's responsibility for blocking any! programme of disarmament, which all Ameri~ can Presidents since the days of Harding have sponsored, is self-evident. The United States: itself accepts the fact that in a world in. which force is used as an instrument of] national policy every nation must be strong, if it is not to be subjected itself to force, and' for the first time since the war an American President is talking in terms of re-armament rather than disarmament. Yet the earlier policy is not forgotten and every time an increased appropriation for arms is demanded the readiness of America to discuss disarma~ ment is repeated, more it must be confessed with the object of keeping the record straight than with any expectation that disarmament is possible in the near future.
But it is in the related sphere of commerce and finance that Germany and the United States stand forward as the champions of rival political systems, the United States of the "open" economy based upon the unconditional most favoured nation principle and the unregulated flow of funds between nations, Germany of the "closed'" economy based upon bilateral trade bargains and government con~ trolled exchange. The United States prevented by tradition from collaborating, with her fellow democracies politically but since 1934 she was striven to improve relations with them commercially and in so doing (whether she intended to do so or when ther she likes having done so), is the nucleus of the commercial system which rivals the German, Since commerce and politics are so inier~ twined she may also find herself unconsciously assuming the political leadership of the "open economy" and "free exchange" nations though at the moment such a tendency is checked by the good neighbour doctrine based on the. golden rule of doing unto others as you would be done by.
Since the United States would object strongly if other nations advised her to change her forms of government™ and docs object strongly when movements take place within the country based on the ideas of other nations she in her turn admits that internal forms of government in other countries are no concern of hers. Under this policy the United States no longer refuses to recognize changes of government brought about by revolutionary means; she no longer presumes to stand in moral' judgment and insists, to! adopt a term from social life, that certain nations aren't quite nice to know. Instead
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.