The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER XVI. 65
We can look back on the Washington Conference and see the truth of some of these observations there. That
Conference dealt with only a portion of the field of naval armaments, among only five powers, only three of
which had any substantial naval force. The naval staffs of the countries particularly interested had to prepare
in advance elaborate studies, and yet with all this the Conference lasted nearly three months. Certainly the
task of a general conference on disarmament is very much greater than that of the Washington Conference
was.
It took nearly four months to draw up the Treaty of Versailles, which is by far the most elaborate and complex
international agreement ever written. In the circumstances this was a remarkably short time. The most serious
detailed criticism that I have seen of the time involved suggests that it might have been two or three weeks
less. It is to be remembered, however, that the Peace Conference worked at that time under a perfectly
enormous pressure from all sides to complete its task, which, as a matter of fact, would never have been
completed within anything like the time taken if the decisions had not finally been left to three or four men to
take.
I need not dwell further on the difficulties of the details. Any one who reads the Disarmament Treaty drawn
up at the Washington Conference will appreciate something of their nature; but, looking at the matter from the
larger point of view, there is a question of real statesmanship involved. The possible field to be covered by a
general conference on disarmament cannot perhaps be limited; but the extent to which the first discussion
shall go will determine its success or failure. If it attempts to go too far, that will be fatal; if, on the other hand,
the attempt is only to go a short distance now and to continue on the road further later on, the Conference may
be a success, despite the fact that it will meet with the criticisms of those who want to do everything at once.
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The question of a permanent, or rather of a recurrent, Conference on Disarmament, as proposed by the
so-called American Plan,[6] is one that is inevitably bound to come up at any such Conference, for whatever
the Conference does or whatever it tries to do, it will have to leave much undone. Many questions will remain
open, many changes of the future will not be foreseen, and those who meet in the Conference will see when
they end their work that they have only begun it.
It is also to be noted again that the Conference is to fix the period within which the plan of reduction which it
adopts is to be carried out. If within that time the plan is not carried out, the Council is to make a declaration
rendering the Protocol null and void. The Conference is also to lay down the grounds on which the Council
may make such a declaration.
In other words, the Protocol itself is to depend wholly upon the work of the Conference; it is to the
Conference that the whole responsibility is transferred. If the Conference does not adopt the plan, and then if
that plan is not carried out[7] within the time and on the conditions that the Conference declares, the Protocol
falls.
Never, I venture to say, has any important treaty ever been drawn up depending upon a more impressive
condition subsequent.
[1] See Annex D, p. 210 at p. 213, et seq.
[2] Annex F, p. 263.
[3] p. 5.
[4] This was written before the meeting of the Council in Rome in December, 1924. The Disarmament
Conference certainly cannot meet before 1926. The present situation of the preliminaries is stated in a note to