The Future of the Washington Conference Treaties

Extract

At the outset, it is pertinent to recall the high hopes with which, ten years ago, the Washington Conference Treaties were proclaimed to the world. We can still remember the measured words with which President Harding brought the Conference to a close. “This Conference,” he declared, “has wrought a truly great achievement. It is hazardous sometimes to speak in superlatives, and I will be restrained. But I will say with every confidence that the faith plighted here today, kept in national honor, will mark the beginning of a new and better epoch in human progress.”

The grounds for these high hopes were set forth in the official summary transmitted to the Senate along with the record of the proceedings of the Conference and the texts of the treaties themselves:

To estimate correctly the character and value of these several treaties [it is written in this document] they should be considered as a whole. Each one contributes its part in combination with the others towards the establishment of conditions in which peaceful security will take the place of competitive preparation for war. … Competitive armament, however, is the result of a state of mind in which a national expectation of attack by some other country causes preparation to meet the attack.