Oct.
It is 4 symptom of modern international morality that the section of the world hich attaches the greatest importance to pacts or treaties when they are signed is precisely. the same section which repudiates them without a tremor. A treaty between two parties is really a solemn pledge or oath to preserve certain conditions or to do certain ws. The pledge is not binding for all and most treaties contain clauses pro~ iding for revision after a fixed period, or clauses which enable one or both parties to denounce the treaty after having given agreed upon notice. There are also conditions under hich a treaty may become automatically null und void, when one of the parties has jolted its provisions. In this case the violator was in the past condemned at the bar of world opinion; and is still so con demned wherever international honour is upheld. There has come into existence, however, a certain school of statesmen who appear to believe that international honour is a myth derived from the innate priggishness of-the human race, and is something to be exploited to the disadvantage of those who believe in it. Of this scheat the leader is Hitler. His principal disciple is Mussolini Both have cynically hailed every pact they have entered into as a world-shaking event an advance towards a "new order."
Yet every pact they have signed has been repudiated the moment they felt like it The three most advertised pacts in recent years have been the Anti-Komintern Pact between Germany, Italy. and Japan; the Russo-German paci, which was a clear contradiction of it; and the triple alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan, which on the surface is a reversal of the Russo-German pact. In the case of the first and the last Of these, Germany has, to use a colloquialism, played its partners "for suckers." The tories of the Anti-Komintern Pact might have been said to have been bound by their common interest to curb the growing power of Soviet Russia. To Germany, Russia stood as a barrier to Hitler's announced programme of expansion towards the south-east. To Italy, Russia was a rival: for influence in the Balkans. To Japan, Russia was an ever-present menace from the north. Tt was to the advantage of each of these. Powers to combine to ensure that the most obvious menace to their plans was kept under control. Yet the moment it suited him, Hitler signed the Russo-German treaty which reduced the Anti-Komintern Pact to the importance of a talking point. By this new treaty Hitler showed how little he cared for his friends in the Anti-Komintern Pact. He got very little out of it. He secured the neutrality of the Soviets in the war he was preparing, but at what cost? He lost half of Poland—ihe half containing the much-coveted oil ficlds—and the Baltic States, He handed over to the astute and unscrupulous dictator of the Kremlin the control of the whole of the eastern Baltic Sea, and later, Bukovina and Bessarabia, He proved that he was prepared to betray Moly and Japan for a paltry gain.
The shock to these countries so badly let down by Hitler lasted just over a year in the case of Japan, and only a few months in the case of Italy." To the detached observer it is amazing that either country could have been so naive as to believe in Hitler's word sufficiently to sign the recent three Power alliance. Italy may have had no choice in the matter, being herself at war and largely dependent' upon the leviathan which had swallowed most of Europe. But that Japan, after the first betrayal, was again prepared to put trust in such "heads I win, tails you lose" statesmen, is even more astonishing. In Tokyo, it is admitted, there is a large extremist class which is suffering badly from "grabbing fever," and this ailment has doubtless blinded them to the dangers and unreliability of their new alliance, which is apparently entirely one sided. What can Germany or Italy do to assist Japan in the event that country becomes involved in a war with, say, the United States? At best the two European partners in the Axis can only acquiesce in Japan's plans for a "new order in East Asia," and they do that very reductantly, since they, too, have had their eyes on the rich terniones coveted by the Tokyo extremists. The Japanese can be assured that the moment it suits their convenience, Hitler and Mussolini will repudiate their responsibilities under this new alliance, and Japan will be left "holding the bag."
It cannot be too strongly emphasized that a treaty or pact means to the Totalitarians a commitment only so long as they are getting the major benefit out of it. Altruism does not exist in the Totalitarian creed. Honour is something which is left to the spokesmen of the Democracies to pale about—unless it is honour borrowed from blood-soaked battle-fidds or cities in ruins. But to the Demo-crocies it is something different. It is the foundation of civilization. It is the prime essential of security—not mere physical security and safety of life and limb, but that security which enables the world to live at peace, and nations to prosper and thrive side by side, fo the mutual benefit of all.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.