Date: 19 February 1932
Location: Geneva
Speaker: Aga Khan III
Source: Speeches of Aga Khan III – K K Aziz
Full Text
The problem of disarmament after the Great War – ideal of peace in India – the Hague Conferences – the First World War and its consequences for India – in spite of hopes for peace, insecurity persists – remove fear – reduce annaments – the army in India the American example – India’s maritime interests – protection of civilian population – the draft convention – consolidate the establishment of peace – Treaty of Locarno – regional fraternity between Canada and USA – French proposals – Soviet and American aloofness from the League – a world authority with its own forces – an international police force and a judicial organiz ation – a series of world conferences – work to be accomplished desire of the citizens of every country for peace – the League must forge ahead.
Almost all of us here are preoccupied with the pressing problems that have arisen as a consequence of the great war. Among these, the most urgent is that of disarmament, with all that it implies.
But let us not forget that for many years before the war this problem was insistent. The general burden of armaments had created alarm among those who were able to look ahead, and widespread dissatisfaction among the vast masses of the popu lations in all continents and countries – eastern and western alike – and India was no exception.
I am speaking here for many millions of my fellow-countrymen, who place the love of peace and the repudiation of violence among the first of the human virtues. With them, the ideal of peace is no mere economic expedient; it is an element deep rooted in their very nature. That is the spirit which it is my task to reflect in making what contribution I can to the proceedings of this Conference.
The striving of mankind after some more organic development than the mere clash of. nations and States is nothing new. Many of us who are taking part in this Conference will remember the hopes raised in our hearts by the first Peace Conference at The Hague; and we remember the grievous disappointment that fol lowed its meagre results. The second Hague Conference was also a failure and, even from the beginning, little was ever expected from it.
Since then we have had the terrible lessons of the world war.
Confined in the first place by historical and other causes to one continent, it gradually spread its devastating effects throughout the world. In distant India, as in Europe, it created a host of mourners and left a legacy of bitter tragedy. Over a million of my fellow-countrymen were called to arms, of whom more than 50,000 laid down their lives. The ravages of war, in its toll of humanity, its social and economic disturbances, have left their mark on India as on the other countries which were drawn into its vortex.
With the coming of peace, new hopes were raised that at last we had learned our lesson; that we could look to a better world in which force would be replaced by disarmament and arbi tration, by the adjustment of national differences and difficulties through methods of peaceful co-operation; and that the reign of law was now to be firmly established.
Alas! We have found that armaments still hold sway, and that the feeling of insecurity persists. It is by no means certain that the war to end war has been fought and won.
To-day social and economic conditions throughout the world make it imperative that, unless the fabric of organised human society is to collapse, vigorous steps must be taken forthwith. In this work, the present Conference is called to play a leading part.
On the moral side, we must set ourselves to remove the paralysing effects of fear, ill-will and suspicion. On the material side, it is absolutely essential that the non-productive effort devoted to warlike preparations should be reduced to the bare minimum.
That minimum has already been stressed by the spokesman of the United States of America. In India, we have constantly borne in mind the underlying principle – namely, the maintenance of forces that shall be no more than adequate to guarantee peace and order on and within her borders.
India’s own scale of armaments allows no margin for aggressive uses. The size of her forces has to be measured with reference to the vastness of her area and the diversity of her conditions.
The fact is so often forgotten that I will venture to recall it here, that the area of India is more than half that of the whole of Europe, and her population nearly one-fifth of that of the entire globe. May I also recall that within India herself more than one third of the total area is under the jurisdiction of Rulers of the Indian States? Many of these maintain forces of their own, in part for the preservation of the order within the States’ bound aries, and to some extent also for co-operation in the task of guaranteeing the defence of India against the possibility of aggression from without. The remoteness of India is my excuse, if I need one, for alluding to these facts.
A happy augury of our proceedings – and I can say, with experience of various conferences, that it is indeed a happy augury – is that we have already at this early stage heard and bent our minds to a number of concrete proposals. This is the more helpful and fortunate since the time for detailed study in commissions of the Conference is fast approaching. Before we met here, expectations ranged between the high hopes of ideal ists and the scepticism of those who looked for little or no result.
The very atmosphere of our meetings and the earnest attention paid on all sides to fruitful suggestions give us confidence that we can now work for positive results. Would anyone have ventured to say three weeks ago that so much practical ground-work could be accomplished within so short a time?
I think I am right in saying that there is already a general body of support for detailed suggestions of the kind that have been put before us by the representative of that great country, the United States of America, and may I say that America’s long record of success in combining peace with prosperity is one that fitly entitles her to take the active part she has already taken in our deliberations? I look with hope and confidence to a continu ance of her efforts.
Her suggestions are fresh in our minds. In dealing with them, I might seem to be travelling away from the more immediate problems of my country if I refer to the larger questions of naval defence. But I would recall that India is essentially interested in these matters. Her coast-line extends over 5,500 miles – a length comparable perhaps with that of any of the States here repre sented. Though in the main an agricultural country, she possesses five great centres of industry that, from their situation, are exposed to attack from the sea, and her volume of sea-borne trade is a vital factor in her prosperity. She acknowledges the immeasurable advantages given to her by the protecting power of the British Navy. In saying this, I have in mind not only defence in war but the policing of the seas for the benefit of all who go about their lawful occasions. If not a maritime Power, India has maritime interests that entitle her to share in the discussion of all measures for relieving the burden of naval armaments.
Then, again, we will co-operate to the full in devising means for protecting the civil population against ruthless methods of warfare. Thus we support such proposals as that for the total abolition of the submarine, and of lethal gas and bacteriological warfare, and the use of poison generally.
Again, we would pay special attention to any suggestions for limiting the destructive power of air bombardment, and generally for restricting weapons of warfare which may broadly be classed as aggressive in their purposes. I know well the difficulty of marking off these weapons with any degree of logical precision.
But there is already a great body of sentiment which considers that such a distinction can, and demands that it should, be made, and that no merely technical obstacles should be allowed to stand in the way.
To focus discussion on all these matters we have before us the draft Convention. We whole-heartedly recognise the patient thought and work out of which it has been constructed, and we readily accept it as the starting-point of our new activities. Its detailed provisions deserve, and will receive, the closest examin ation. We shall have to consider whether the principle of budgetary limitation may not provide an invaluable cross-check on the limitation of armaments. We shall have to face the intri cacies of the problem fully and frankly. We must meet the difficulty, for instance, of comparing the very different facilities for production that exist in different countries. We must deal with the problem of relating the cost of highly paid members of a voluntary force to that of the lower paid members of a force recruited by conscription. And here let me say, on behalf of my country, that India would welcome anything that can be done to limit the burden of conscription and so to release human energy for the purely peaceful activities for which it was destined.
The authors of the draft Convention, however, themselves urge that it should be supplemented wherever possible by any further constructive proposals that at present lie outside its scope. For the work of peace that we have in view, we must not concentrate a powerful frontal attack on warfare on one or two points only.
We must attack warfare all along the line. We must consolidate the establishment of peace. We must make peace invulnerable by the limitation of armaments, by the development of arbitral methods, by each and every means of giving to weak and strong alike an abiding sense of security.
The basis of all security is a foreign policy rooted in mutual goodwill and co-operation; a foreign policy in which no country covets its neighbour’s possessions or seeks to infringe its moral and spiritual rights. Strides have already been taken in this direc tion, notably in the Treaty of Locamo. Those four great statesmen (Briand, Chamberlain, Mussolini and Stresemann), whose names will always be associated with that agreement, have placed not only their own countries, but the whole world, under a lasting debt of gratitude. The spirit of Locamo is, however, no fitful spark. For many years it has governed the relations between the States that compose the two great continents of North and South America – and here the case that comes most readily to the mind of a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations is that of the United States of America and Canada, where the very idea of aggression has been so completely banished that, whatever other calamities may threaten or befall their citizens, the calamity of mutual warfare never enters into their lives or thoughts. May there not still be ample room to develop regional fraternities which could in course of time come to cover the whole globe, to act as a reinforcement to the common instrument that already exists in the League of Nations with all its varied activities?
For shaping the work of future world peace, France, which has so often led the world in brilliant ideas, has put forward far reaching proposals which have already arrested our attention.
We must approach them from two sides. We must bear in mind the practical problems to which they may give rise, the vast and formidable adjustment of machinery that they may involve. But let us not lose sight of the ideal by which they are inspired. Let us keep before us the possibility of a better world organisation, created not for sectional interests or for self-assertion, but for the single purpose of freeing each one of the many millions on this planet from the fear of war and from the burden of guarding against war in time of peace. The ideal, distant though it may be, will, I venture to say, carry an intimate appeal to my own fellow-countrymen, for whom the greatest good is that each indi vidual should go about his daily task in peaceful and ordered co operation with his neighbour.
I have placed this ideal in the forefront to show the spirit in which I would approach the practical problems underlying these proposals. We shall neither exaggerate nor evade them. For India, the first problem would be how a supreme world authority could be constructed so long as great and powerful countries like the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and several States which are India’s neighbours remain outside the League of Nations.
India has only one desire – to live in goodwill and amity with her neighbours. She is watching with friendly interest the processes to which they are now devoting themselves or readjusting their national and economic life, and she is not unhopeful that in the event they may find themselves able to assume the full rights, duties and responsibilities of Members of the League of Nations.
I will mention briefly some other problems to which the pro posals would give rise. For instance, would it be possible to compose an organisation to direct the forces under the command of the world authority? Can it be formed out of the nationals of the various countries; and, if so, how can it function if the inter national force has at any time to be employed against one of those countries? Again, the central body of the world authority would have to be equipped with the power to take prompt and decisive action. Experience, so far, has unfortunately shown the_,, extreme difficulty of assuring this condition, which nevertheless would be essential to the prestige, and, indeed, the existence, of a world authority possessing the final power to enforce its will upon recalcitrants. Further, the function of the forces maintained by the world authority, if they should ever have to be set in action, will largely be to defend the weaker against the more powerful; yet both will be represented on an equal footing in the League.
Here we encounter the thorny question whether decisions would be taken by a majority or by a unanimous vote alone. There is, moreover, the problem – which may be of special interest to India – whether the forces maintained by the world authority should be stationed at some central spot or distributed regionally in areas where the possibility of conflict may have to be taken into account. Beyond all this, the establishment of a world authority would call for a vast and complex acljustment of the manifold provisions of international law. That may well be a stupendous problem, no less than the others I have indicated.
However, I do not wish to dwell on the difficulties. I instance them to show that a vast amount of ground has yet to be traversed before we can confidently say that this, that or the other solution will terminate the problems and perplexities in which we are now living. But once again let us bear in mind what may be implied in the ideal which I have sketched. In the organisation of States, a universal feature is the maintenance of a police force which commands respect just because it embodies the authority of the State; but behind it is a judicial organisation which equally represents that authority. The one is dependent on the other.
Both these bodies would have to find a parallel if humanity should work its way towards an all-embracing world organisation.
The judiciary would have to draw on the best representatives of the ability of nations, and of mankind. The central authority, acting as a whole, would have to exercise more than merely judicial or advisory functions. If confronted in various areas with vast internal forces of discontent, it might in its ultimate state be called upon to carry out rectifications, re-alignments and re adjustments in accordance with the wishes of the peoples most vitally concerned. Its duty would be to give effect to those wishes without ill-will and without risk of conflict between the nations.
Above all, it should be a living and developing organism and not the dead hand of the past trying to prevent the full and healthy development of the future.
Clearly this ideal will demand all our best thought and our most patient study before it can come near fulfilment. L~t us face the facts and agree that only a series of world conferences can lead us to the achievement of this happy end for mankind.
Meanwhile, we must concentrate on the work that lies immedi ately to our hand. There is no excuse for us to sink back in despair and abandon ourselves to cut-throat competition and the ceaseless rivalry of armaments. Rather we must use and develop to the full the instruments that are already in our hands. In particular, we cannot afford to cast aside the practical results achieved at the cost of such long and careful discussion by the Preparatory Commission. And to look further afield, it is incon ceivable that the League of Nations as it now exists, with the immense and worldwide moral prestige that it has already won for itself, should not forge ahead. Let us devote our best energies to this great purpose. Above all, let us seize the occasion which has now called us together. Disarmament in its widest sense – the neutralisation of war, the security and peace of mankind – can and must be taken in hand. Let us go forward with it here and now.
There is a cry going up from the heart of all the peace-loving citizens of every country for the lessening of their military burdens, for a decrease in the financial load which those burdens impose, for the security of civil populations against indiscriminate methods of warfare, and, above all, for security against the very idea of war. It is their growing hope and demand that all the moral authority of the League should be used now and strength ened in every case to prevent aggression and to support and establish the reign of peace, law, arbitration and international goodwill. My countrymen, to whom the cause of peace is sacred since time immemorial, will anxiously follow our endeavours and wholeheartedly pray for their success.
Source: Leag;ue of Nations: Conference for the Reduction and Limitation ofA rmaments:
Verbatim Record (Revised) of the Fourteenth Plenary Meeting, Friday, February 19th, 1932, at 10 a.m., Geneva, 1932, pp. 2-3.
The Right Honourable Arthur Henderson of Great Britain was in the chair.
The first speaker of the day was Mahmoud Fakhry Pasha of Egypt, and he was followed by the Aga Khan; the third and last speaker was M. Castillo Najera of Mexico.
On the Disarmament Conference, as it was generally known, see H. M.
Swanwick, Collective Insecurity, London, 1937; J. T. Shotwell and Marina Salvin, Lessons on Security and Disarmament from the History of the League of Nations, New York, 1949; W. Arnold-Forster, The Disarmament Conference, London, 1931; R.
E. Dell, The Geneva Racket, 1920-1939, London, 1940; Clarence A. Berdahl, “Disarmament and Equality”, Geneva Studies, April 1932; Norman H. Davis, “Dis armament Conference”, International Conciliation, December 1932; and Henri Bouche, “Laguerre moderne et la securite collective”, World Affairs, September 1938.