Robert Cecil to Colonel House
Title
Robert Cecil to Colonel House
Creator
Cecil of Chelwood, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount, 1864-1958
Identifier
WWP25111
Date
1918 July 22
Description
Lord Robert Cecil gives his opinion on the League of Nations.
Source
Library of Congress, Woodrow Wilson Papers
Publisher
Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum
Subject
League of Nations
World War, 1914-1918
Contributor
Morgan Willer
Relation
WWI1120
Language
English
Provenance
Document scan was taken from Library of Congress microfilm reel of the Wilson Papers. WWPL volunteers transcribed the text.
Text
Foreign Office,
London.
Confidential.
My dear Colonel House:
I am extremely grateful to you for your letter of June 24th.
There are indeed a large number of opinions about a league of nations, but I am struck with the fact that certain broad principles seem pretty generally accepted. One is that international disputes may be divided into two classes, though it is obvious that the definition of classes must be rather nebulous. Still, broadly, almost everyone thinks that only the less important disputes can really be disposed of by a tribunal of arbitration, and that I am sure is true.
In any dispute between two nations involving vital national interests neither of them would be ready to accept the decision of any external tribunal. Nor do I understand that you disagree with that view, though you believe that it might be useful to have a preliminary discussion before a tribunal, and then a reference to a council of the nations.
You may be right, but I have a kind of feeling that it would impossible to construct, even for this purpose, a tribunal that would command sufficient confidence to do useful work in vital international disputes.
The Phillimore scheme, as you will remember, proceeds on a different plan. It relies on making the two disputing nations, or groups of nations, bring their quarrel for open discussion before an international conference. This very much carries out your idea that we must rely on international public opinion as our chief guarantee of peace. The real trouble is, how are we to secure that the disputants shall bring their dispute before the council of nations? For that purpose, according to the Phillimore scheme, coercion is to be employed.
Since I sent you our scheme I have seen the French proposals. Generally speaking, I am not very much impressed with them, but there is one suggestion which seems to me very important, and that is that we should utilise the international organizations which we are now constructing for the control of raw materials and other things as a lever to compel the nations of the world to accept a league of peace. The suggestion is that we might make participation in these organizations dependent on adhesion to the league of peace, which seems a very fruitful suggestion and well worth investigation.
I notice that you propose that the components of the league should make a profession of faith to the effect that they will abide by a code of honour. I think it would be all to the good to have such a profession included in the instrument by which the league of peace was constructed, but I am afraid I do not think that by itself it could be relied upon. The example of Germany in this war shows that under pressure of false teaching and national danger there is no crime which a civilized nation will not commit, and the same has been found true over and over again in history.
I am convinced that unless some form of coercion can be devised which will work more or less automatically no league of peace will endure. You refer to the history of the civilization of individuals; but surely the great instrument of law and order has been the establishment of the doctrine of the supremacy of the law. So long as codes of laws were only, or mainly codes of honour or good conduct they were always disobeyed by anyone who was sufficiently powerful to do so, with the result that we in this country had to endure periods of anarchy culminating in the Wars of the Roses. On the Continent things were even worse, and it was very largely the luck of having here so vigorous a ruler as Henry VII, combined with his skill in devising a means of coercing the barons and feudal chiefs that really laid the foundations of our present civilization. The Star Chamber by its subsequent history achieved an evil reputation, but at the time of its institution by Henry VII it was a most valuable instrument for coercing the forces of disorder.
I admit that I do not see my way to the institution of an international Star Chamber, but I do believe that the means of control conferred by the complications of modern finance and modern commerce should be very powerful, and if they should be strengthened by such a scheme as the French propose I do believe that we might devise an efficient sanction for the commands of a league of peace. One great danger, however, I see in the way:
The French suggest that it should be confined to democratically governed nations- at least so I understand them.
I cannot help feeling that this is a most dangerous path for us to travel. After the Napoleonic wars public opinion in Europe believed that Jacobinism was the great danger to peace, just as we believe, with more justification, that Prussian Militarism is what we have mainly to fear. Accordingly, the principal nations entered into the Holy Alliance, with a view to suppressing Jacobinism whenever they saw it raising its head. Very soon Great Britain withdrew from the League, but it persisted with the most disastrous results for many years in Europe.
I am dreadfully afraid that we may make the same mistake now. Prussian Militarism is indeed a portentous evil, but if, misled by our fear of it, we try to impose on all the nations of the world a form of government which has been indeed admirably successful in America and in this country, but is not necessarily suited for all others, I am convinced we shall plant the seeds of very serious international trouble.
It is for the same reason that I am reluctant even to accept your principle that we ought to guarantee each other’s territorial integrity. I am sure we ought to guarantee, as far as it can be done, the observance of all treaties, and as a corollary we ought to provide means for their periodical reviewal, but I do not know that territorial integrity should be especially singled out from other treaty obligations and as it were crystallized for all time.
I hope these observations will not seem to you very desultory and unintelligible, but the subject is a difficult and complicated one.
Against thanking you very warmly for sending me your letter,
Believe me,
Yours very sincerely,
(Signed) Robert Cecil.
I am in hopes that this Government will adopt the Phillimore Report as a basis of discussion with their allies.
London.
Confidential.
My dear Colonel House:
I am extremely grateful to you for your letter of June 24th.
There are indeed a large number of opinions about a league of nations, but I am struck with the fact that certain broad principles seem pretty generally accepted. One is that international disputes may be divided into two classes, though it is obvious that the definition of classes must be rather nebulous. Still, broadly, almost everyone thinks that only the less important disputes can really be disposed of by a tribunal of arbitration, and that I am sure is true.
In any dispute between two nations involving vital national interests neither of them would be ready to accept the decision of any external tribunal. Nor do I understand that you disagree with that view, though you believe that it might be useful to have a preliminary discussion before a tribunal, and then a reference to a council of the nations.
You may be right, but I have a kind of feeling that it would impossible to construct, even for this purpose, a tribunal that would command sufficient confidence to do useful work in vital international disputes.
The Phillimore scheme, as you will remember, proceeds on a different plan. It relies on making the two disputing nations, or groups of nations, bring their quarrel for open discussion before an international conference. This very much carries out your idea that we must rely on international public opinion as our chief guarantee of peace. The real trouble is, how are we to secure that the disputants shall bring their dispute before the council of nations? For that purpose, according to the Phillimore scheme, coercion is to be employed.
Since I sent you our scheme I have seen the French proposals. Generally speaking, I am not very much impressed with them, but there is one suggestion which seems to me very important, and that is that we should utilise the international organizations which we are now constructing for the control of raw materials and other things as a lever to compel the nations of the world to accept a league of peace. The suggestion is that we might make participation in these organizations dependent on adhesion to the league of peace, which seems a very fruitful suggestion and well worth investigation.
I notice that you propose that the components of the league should make a profession of faith to the effect that they will abide by a code of honour. I think it would be all to the good to have such a profession included in the instrument by which the league of peace was constructed, but I am afraid I do not think that by itself it could be relied upon. The example of Germany in this war shows that under pressure of false teaching and national danger there is no crime which a civilized nation will not commit, and the same has been found true over and over again in history.
I am convinced that unless some form of coercion can be devised which will work more or less automatically no league of peace will endure. You refer to the history of the civilization of individuals; but surely the great instrument of law and order has been the establishment of the doctrine of the supremacy of the law. So long as codes of laws were only, or mainly codes of honour or good conduct they were always disobeyed by anyone who was sufficiently powerful to do so, with the result that we in this country had to endure periods of anarchy culminating in the Wars of the Roses. On the Continent things were even worse, and it was very largely the luck of having here so vigorous a ruler as Henry VII, combined with his skill in devising a means of coercing the barons and feudal chiefs that really laid the foundations of our present civilization. The Star Chamber by its subsequent history achieved an evil reputation, but at the time of its institution by Henry VII it was a most valuable instrument for coercing the forces of disorder.
I admit that I do not see my way to the institution of an international Star Chamber, but I do believe that the means of control conferred by the complications of modern finance and modern commerce should be very powerful, and if they should be strengthened by such a scheme as the French propose I do believe that we might devise an efficient sanction for the commands of a league of peace. One great danger, however, I see in the way:
The French suggest that it should be confined to democratically governed nations- at least so I understand them.
I cannot help feeling that this is a most dangerous path for us to travel. After the Napoleonic wars public opinion in Europe believed that Jacobinism was the great danger to peace, just as we believe, with more justification, that Prussian Militarism is what we have mainly to fear. Accordingly, the principal nations entered into the Holy Alliance, with a view to suppressing Jacobinism whenever they saw it raising its head. Very soon Great Britain withdrew from the League, but it persisted with the most disastrous results for many years in Europe.
I am dreadfully afraid that we may make the same mistake now. Prussian Militarism is indeed a portentous evil, but if, misled by our fear of it, we try to impose on all the nations of the world a form of government which has been indeed admirably successful in America and in this country, but is not necessarily suited for all others, I am convinced we shall plant the seeds of very serious international trouble.
It is for the same reason that I am reluctant even to accept your principle that we ought to guarantee each other’s territorial integrity. I am sure we ought to guarantee, as far as it can be done, the observance of all treaties, and as a corollary we ought to provide means for their periodical reviewal, but I do not know that territorial integrity should be especially singled out from other treaty obligations and as it were crystallized for all time.
I hope these observations will not seem to you very desultory and unintelligible, but the subject is a difficult and complicated one.
Against thanking you very warmly for sending me your letter,
Believe me,
Yours very sincerely,
(Signed) Robert Cecil.
I am in hopes that this Government will adopt the Phillimore Report as a basis of discussion with their allies.
Original Format
Letter
To
House, Edward Mandell, 1858-1938
Files
Collection
Citation
Cecil of Chelwood, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount, 1864-1958, “Robert Cecil to Colonel House,” 1918 July 22, WWP25111, World War I Letters, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.