Saved by a Stimson

(See front cover)

The peace of Asia, if there is to be peace, was more nearly in the hands of Sir John Allsebrook Simon last week than in those of any other man. At Geneva the British Foreign Secretary suavely brought the League Assembly around to a certain way of looking at the Sino-Japanese situation. This viewpoint approximated that of President Hoover and Secretary Stimson. Meanwhile at Shanghai, where the Japanese victory had become embarrassingly pyrrhic (see p. 16), worried Japanese generals, admirals and diplomats flocked around the British Minister, Sir Miles Wedderburn Lampson, who was, of course, under orders from his chief, Sir John Simon.

On the sidelines at Shanghai sat U. S. Vice Admiral Montgomery Taylor aboard his flagship the battle cruiser Houston. At Geneva the U. S. ''observer" was U. S. Minister to Switzerland Hugh Wilson. Three times during a single League Assembly sitting tall, sad-eyed Sir John Simon walked over to Observer Wilson and publicly whispered in his ear. This British courtesy and the general line of Sir John's efforts so pleased Mr. Stimson that next day he told Washington correspondents that now "all nations can speak with the same voice." A spokesman for Observer Wilson said that he was "very grateful" to Sir John. For what?

Minor League States including the British Dominions had begun last week by demanding that the League take action of some sort or at least that the Assembly name the "aggressor" (Japan). But slowly, artfully Sir John and other statesmen of the Great Powers got the minor nations in hand. As London's famed Spectator has said, "The motto of Sir John Simon is apparently l'artifice, l'artifice, et toujours l'artifice." Last week artful John, a lawyer accustomed to receive the largest fees charged in the Empire, made short work of such whippersnappers as, for example, the Delegate of His Majesty's Dominion of South Africa, Hon. Charles T. te Water.

When it began to seem that the Assembly would not even name the aggressor, Mr. te Water whippersnapped, looking directly at Sir John:

"We need wise, strong leadership and action, not mere words! Are the Great Powers satisfied that they have shown the way?"

Thus challenged from His Majesty's own camp, the Great Lawyer "looked uncomfortable." according to correspondents, but Mr. te Water was not so foolish as to press his charge, sat down.

What Sir John proceeded to do, as a few astute Britons frankly pointed out, was this: he pressed upon the League the Asiatic policy which Mr. Stimson enunciated in his letter to Senator Borah (TIME. March 7). Thus Sir John tucked some exceedingly strange bedfellows into the League bed, but at the same time he kept Mother Britain's apron clear, no matter what may happen. Blame for the policy which the League proceeded to adopt was promptly heaped by Tokyo upon Washington. "Mr. Stimson," said the Japanese Foreign Office spokesman acidly, "is leading the League by the nose."

Where?

"Japanese Victory." Artfully steered, the League Assembly which had met in extraordinary session upon the Shanghai crisis (TIME, March 14), created last week one more League round table, an exceedingly imposing "Pacification Committee" of 19 states to sit in Geneva from now on until Japan and China are pacified. Sir John Simon, while nations were being elected to this commission, withheld Great Britain's vote from South Africa, thus rapping across the knuckles of Mr. te Water who had made him "uncomfortable." Elected were Belgium (because her Paul Hymans was Assembly President), Colombia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland; and the member states of the League Council (excepting China and Japan), namely France, Germany, Great Britain, Guatemala, the Irish Free State, Italy, Jugoslavia, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland and Spain.

What chiefly pleased Washington was not the setting up of this Commission but adoption by the Assembly of a resolution stressing those moral, legal and spiritual values which Mr. Stimson stressed in his letter to Senator Borah. By a last-minute intercession of Sir John Simon there was grafted upon this Assembly resolution an endorsement of the Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy--a much appreciated compliment to Statesman Stimson.

In Washington the State Department laid special emphasis on the following Stimsonesque part of the Geneva resolution: The Assembly . . . declares it incumbent upon members of the League of Nations not to recognize any situation, treaty or agreement which may be brought about by means contrary to the Covenant of the League of Nations.

Did that mean that Japan will have to get out of Manchuria and Shanghai? In Geneva, Japanese Delegate Sato said, "The entire resolution is sufficiently abstract." It passed the Assembly, which traditionally in such cases acts by unanimous vote, with Mr. Sato abstaining and with the Chinese Delegate, Dr. Yen, also abstaining. Perhaps one or the other of these Orientals thought that his abstention invalidated the resolution. Later Japan or China can make such a claim, if it is desirable.

Geneva buzzed with idle talk of a "Japanese diplomatic victory"--which was certainly an injustice to Sir John. He had kept the League from testing its strength, from breaking down.

"I am a League man," Sir John often says. "Yes, a League man."

"General Conspiracy." The Empire's highest-paid lawyer is supposed to have no sense of humor.* There is also the story of what is supposed to be the only time John was ever outwitted in conversation. An English explorer of note was saying ". . . and so I came upon a trunkless body" when keen-witted Lawyer Simon cut in, "You don't mean a trunkless body, you mean a headless body."

"No, I don't," chuckled the explorer, "this trunkless body happened to be an elephant's!"

In British politics the two bitterest enemies today are Artful John and wily Mr. Lloyd George who venomously calls him "The Little Gladstone." Both men are intense Non-Conformists. Early in 1914. Sir John Simon, M.P. carried Protestantism to the length of pooh-pooh-ing the war scare and telling the English people that their natural allies are the Protestant Germans. After war was declared Lawyer Simon was the only Cabinet Minister actually to resign as a protest against conscription. He volunteered, joined the Royal Air Force as a legal adviser upon such questions as the propriety of bombing German cities, continued to practise law in His Majesty's uniform in London. This irregular procedure forced him finally out of the R. A. F., but he received a decoration awarded for war service by noncombatants.

Citizen Simon's chief service to the Empire since the War was rendered during Britain's General Strike (TIME, May 10: 24, 1926), though the public did not know this at the time. Sir John, whose prestige as a legal authority was enormous, suddenly made a speech in which he pointed out to the British Trades Union Council their "general strike" was in his opinion a "general conspiracy" and that all strikers could be punished and fined to the uttermost farthing of their wealth. Simple, law abiding men, the members of the British Trades Union Council were shocked and terrified (as some of them revealed long afterward) into calling off whatever it was they had called on.

More recently Sir John's legal talents caused him, as chairman of the Indian Statutory Commission, to produce a 753-page report on India which made no mention of modern Gandhism (not legal). It was widely said that "the Simon Report was obsolete when published" (TIME, June 30, 1930 et ante), but Mr. Gandhi and over 18,000 Gandhites are now in jail, and the last laugh may very easily be Sir John's.

Possunt Quia. "His laugh is remarkable," one of Sir John's associates has said. "Knowing that he has no sense of humor, one knows that when he laughs he is condescending."*

In jail just now sits Lord Kylsant, former chairman of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. whom Sir John Simon defended against the Crown's charge of misleading stockholders (TIME, Nov. 16). But the fact that he lost this big case has not impaired the legal reputation of Sir John Simon or moderated his charges. For is he not Foreign Secretary? Does he not hold the star Cabinet post?

Just before he left for Geneva, Sir John was asked by Laborite members of the House of Commons whether the Japanese Government has today a secret understanding with the British Government covering Manchuria and Shanghai. With a pale smile, the Great Lawyer said he had not "heard" of any such understanding. In Geneva, at the opening of the Disarmament Conference, Sir John said: "We represent the mass of people in all lands, the people who fight the wars and are hoping, even against hope, for a wise issue from our deliberations. Possunt quid posse videntur."/-

This Conference accepted the suggestion of U. S. Chief Delegate Hugh Gibson that it virtually suspend activities last week "so that the League Assembly can come to grips with the really vital and urgent questions which are before it." When the Assembly did not come to grips with anything, the Conference prepared to adjourn over Easter. U. S. Delegate Norman H. Davis left Geneva to have a talk with President Hoover in the White House. Congress has appropriated $300.000 to keep the U. S. Delegation at Geneva for at least eight months. "But Messieurs!"; excitedly cried that great French lawyer and Delegate Maitre Joseph Paul-Boncour, "our Conference is going to last for at least two years. Why not? The Washington Arms Conference of only five Great Powers lasted four months, and here we have 57 nations represented!"

* His defenders (English) tell with a chuckle the anecdote of how Sir John once said: "I am sorry to leave America without having seen Babe Ruth bat." Similarly admirers of the late, great Dr. Samuel Johnson claim that he had a sense of humor because he wrote the verse:

As with my hat upon my head

I walk'd along the Strand,

I there did meet another man

With his hat in his hand.

* No condescension was Lawyer Simon's behavior when a wealthy peer called one afternoon to ask and pay for his advice. Launching into an impromptu philosophical discourse, Sir John absentmindedly poured out two cups of tea, drank both of them himself, and bowed his flabbergasted guest out, oblivious of the fact that his audience was a prospective client.

/- Success comes to those resolved to succeed.

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