It will be perceived that up to this point the treaty does not undertake to make or provide for making new universal or general international law. It does four things: It furnishes the high authority of the five great naval Powers of the world as to what the existing law is, at the same time inviting all other Powers to add to that authority by their assent. It binds all of these five great Powers themselves to obey this law. It establishes jurisdiction for the trial and punishment of all future violations of this law. It classifies violations of this law with piracy. Recall the controversy waged in Germany in the year 1916 over the question whether Germany should engage in unrestricted submarine warfare against commerce. There were two parties on opposite sides of the question and the issue for a long time appeared doubtful. The argument which apparently won the day was that such warfare was not prohibited because the rules of international law regarding visit and search and seizure were made when there were no submarines and that as submarines could not work effectually under those rules, the rules were not to be deemed applicable to them, so that unrestricted submarine warfare against commerce was no violation of international law. The general judgment of the civilized world was that the rules for the protection of innocent lives were wholly independent of the description of vessels which might undertake to regulate commerce and that no belligerent could avoid such rules by constructing ships which could not conveniently obey them. It seems highly probable that if that general judgment had been formally registered and declared before 1916, as it has been in this treaty, the decision about unlimited submarine warfare against commerce would have been the other way in Germany and the terrible destruction caused by that warfare would have been avoided. Recall also the situation which existed after the Armistice when people were crying "Hang the Kaiser" and when the Allied countries were confronted with the fact that they could not punish the atrocious crimes committed by German officers on land and sea during the course of the war, under any jurisdiction existing at the time the offenses were committed; that is to say, they could not punish lawless violence except by lawless violence. What I have called the third step in this treaty, the jurisdictional provision for punishment, falls in the same class of national action by international agreement as the punishment of piracy, the prevention of slave trade and the exercise of the authority vested in Congress by the Constitution of the United States (Article 1, Section 8)-"To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and offenses against the law of Nations." The offense to be punished is against the law of nations. The sovereign authority which proposes to punish is national. The right to exercise that authority depends upon jurisdiction of the person. The place of the offense is immaterial because international law is a part of the law of the country asserting jurisdiction and is not confined to the limits of that country's own territory but extends over all the seas. The liability for these violations of international law cannot be excused by pleading the order of a superior. This is quite in accordance with the view taken by the Supreme Court of the United States that no official order of a superior officer can be superior to the law or can relieve the master of a vessel from liability for violating the law. Perhaps this provision agreed upon by so great authority in the world may be the beginning of a system under which in general those rules of international law which express the moral sense of mankind may receive a new sanction through responsibility to law and liability to punishment of the agents through whom the rules may be violated. It will be observed that the statement in this treaty of the rules relating to visit and search and seizure does not undertake to state all the rules of international law upon that subject. It was not intended to state all such rules. It was not intended to be a codification of international law relating to visit and search and seizure. The purpose was to state only the most important rules for the protection of innocent life so briefly and simply that every intelligent person could understand them, and to refrain from confusing the unscientific mind by the introduction of the less important details. This was required by the main consideration upon which the treaty relies for its effectiveness. The treaty is not merely a declaration of existing law. It is not merely an agreement between governments resulting from diplomatic negotiation. It is all these, but above all, it is an appeal to the public opinion of mankind to establish and maintain a fundamental rule of morals applied to international conduct in the form of a rule of international law. We are all familiar with the assertion that international law is not really law because it has no sanction. That is only a half-truth and therefore misleading. The real sanction of international law comes from the punishing power of public opinion, a power which has been growing with great rapidity in recent years and bids fair to grow still more rapidly with the increased public participation in the conduct of foreign affairs and the constantly increasing interdependence of nations. The ordinary mode of its exercise is in control of the operations of government. The most absolutely simple exercise of it is illustrated by the effectiveness of the Chinese boycott which avails itself of no governmental action whatever. This tremendous and increasing power is not very effective as yet in support of mere governmental agreements as such, and it is not very effective in matters which are complicated and confused, which rest upon conflicting evidence and argument; but where a rule of international law is simple, easily understood and applies the moral sense of decent people the world over to human conduct, public opinion is competent to enforce that rule with tremendous effect. The advantage of having the moral sense about a particular course of conduct crystallized into a rule of law, is that it takes the subject out of the field of controversy and leaves opinion free from uncertainty. I have no doubt that the provision of this treaty which serves to put such acts as the sinking of the Lusitania in the same class as piracy correctly registers and formally declares the deliberate opinion of the civilized world outside of Germany and of many people in Germany, and that this formal solemn declaration of the criminal quality of the act will very greatly decrease the probability of its repetition by any nation hereafter because it will present the practical certainty of universal public condemnation which no nation can afford to incur. This treaty takes one further step, and that is to simplify still further the whole subject by proposing a new rule of absolute prohibition against the use of submarines as commerce destroyers, and all five of the great Powers uniting in the treaty voluntarily subject themselves to the operation of that rule and at the same time ask other Powers to join them in that new rule by adhering to the treaty. This, of course, is the first step in making a new rule of international law. It follows closely the method adopted by the Powers joining in the Declaration of Paris in 1856 and in the Alabama Treaty of Washington in 1871. In that treaty of 1871, after stating the three rules regarding the duty of neutrals, to which Great Britain and the United States bound themselves, they proceed to provide for requesting the adherence of other Powers. The effect of this adoption of these three rules regarding the rights and duties of neutrals, although by only two Powers, is apparent in the subsequent conventions which have been building up international law since 1871. I think a similar effect may be anticipated from the declaration of this new rule regarding submarines by the five Powers of the Washington Conference of 1921. Similar considerations apply to the provision of the treaty under consideration prohibiting the use of poisonous gases. That prohibition, which puts the use of poisonous gases and chemicals in the same class with the poisoning of wells, carries on in more definite and universal form a declaration contained in Article 171 of the Treaty of Versailles. That declaration was in these words: The use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and all analogous liquids, materials or devices being prohibited, their manufacture and importation are strictly forbidden in Germany. This was one of the articles which was adopted by the United States in its subsequent treaties with Germany and with Austria and with Hungary, with the result that some thirty-five Powers had united in declaring that such a prohibition existed, although the article itself went no further than to impose the prohibition specifically upon Germany. The present treaty goes a step farther and gives definite form to the general prohibition and invites all civilized Powers to adhere. It will be seen from what I have said that while the Washington Conference had no concern with the making of international law, it did naturally and effectively, as incidental to giving effect to its policy of limiting armament, take quite important steps in the direction of developing and strengthening international law. It took one further step by resolution providing for the appointment of a commission to consider and report upon the condition and requirements of international law affecting the other new agencies of warfare which have produced so startling an effect upon military and naval conflicts. The time has not yet come when international affairs are sufficiently settled to make immediately practicable a general conference to consider, clarify, extend and strengthen the law of nations, but it is already high time for those who believe in a world controlled by law, to begin their preparation for such a conference, and the Washington Conference on Limitation of Armament, as a by-product of its own special work, has contributed materially towards that preparation. The PRESIDENT. I have the pleasure of introducing to you now, to speak upon "The Limitation of Armament by the Conference of Washington," Rear Admiral Harry S. Knapp, of the American Navy. ADMIRAL HARRY S. KNAPP. Mr. President, fellow members, ladies and gentlemen: You will expect from me a strictly professional analysis of, and comments on, the treaty for the limitation of armaments, which I shall endeavor to give you. THE LIMITATION OF ARMAMENT AT THE CONFERENCE OF WASHINGTON ADDRESS BY REAR ADMIRAL HARRY S. KNAPP U. S. Navy, Retired The limitation of land armaments may be dismissed with a word, no such limitation having resulted from the Conference, except in one small particular that of retaining the status quo in insular coast defenses, contained in Article XIX of the treaty "limiting naval armament." A good reason for the failure to limit land armaments existed from the first in the fact that Russia and Poland, having two of the largest armies of the world, were not represented. Premier Briand's speech gave the coup de grace to any hope of action at Washington. In what follows, therefore, the discussion will be confined to naval armaments. Naval strength is always comparative with that of other naval nations. It is frankly from this restricted viewpoint-the comparative military posi tion in which the Navy of the United States is left-that the limitation of armament by the Washington Conference is considered in this paper. The gains from the Conference as a whole may be worth all they have cost to our military position; but that cost is real, as will appear later on. A convenient method of examination will be a comparison of the proposal put forward by the Secretary of State on November 12, 1921, with the actual accomplishments of the treaty. Reduced to its lowest terms, the proposal consists of the following main points definitely stated: (1) Limitation of the total tonnage of capital ships (battleships and battle-cruisers) for each of the signatories; this was established. (2) Limitation of the size of future capital ship units; this was established. (3) Limitation for each of the signatories of the total tonnage of auxiliary combatant ships classified as follows: (a) surface vessels, and (b) submarines, neither of which classes was limited; and (4) Limitation of the size of guns to be carried on board auxiliary combatant ships; this was established. (5) Restrictions upon disposal and building of all classes of combatant ships, as follows: (a) no disposal for use in another navy, which was accomplished; (b) no acquisition from foreign sources, which was partially accomplished, but not entirely; (c) no building for foreign account, which failed of accomplish ment. The ratio of the floating naval strengths to result eventually between the signatories from the acceptance of the American proposal did not appear therein as a definitely stated feature. None the less, the ratio is there, a very important feature, deducible from the tabulations of the proposed allowed strengths in each of the several combatant classes, for each of the signatories of the three principal naval Powers. It was accomplished in part, for capital ships and aircraft carriers only. -- Another feature of the proposal that was not definitely stated was the abolition of competition, but the idea lay behind the whole programme. It was not so much armaments themselves that had brought the world to the point of exasperation as it was the swollen armaments resulting from competition. Some armament is recognized as a necessity by all but a few extremists; and in this connection it will be recalled that the President of the United States, before the Conference met, took occasion to warn the nation that the Conference was not one for disarmament, but for the limitation of armament. The treaty abolishes competition in two classes only,-battleships and aircraft carriers. These are the most expensive ships to build because of the great tonnage of units; but they are not the most expensive |