Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1935. THE KELLOGG PACT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 285, 14 September 1935, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1935. THE KELLOGG PACT.

The suggestion that a world conference should be held under the provisions of the Briand - Kellogg Pact, in order to solve the Abyssinian problem, is not likely to receive any support by those whose opinions count for anything in the present crisis. The argument that more nations are signatories to the Pact than are members of the League, advanced by an American Senator, is concerned chiefly with the fact that the United States is one of those outside the international body. From time to time since the League was founded there have been sought ether ways of achieving an established peace. These have not been necessarily alien or competitive; their general tendency has been to operate as auxiliary to the League, and efforts have been made to bring them within its framework, The most ambitious of them was the Briand-Kellogg Pact, with its pledge to abandon war as an instrument of national policy in the settling of disputes. Its arising is instructive. M. Briand, as Foreign Minister of France, proposed that a mutual pledge of this kind should be given by the French and American Governments. Such a proposal would not have been made—it would have been superfluous —had the United States, like France, been a member of the League. M. Briand’s plan was to get the United States, by this special means, into practical touch with Europe’s scheme of peace. Viewed thus, it was a limited although hopeful device, and American thought naturally preferred a way not so obviously linking the United States with Europe in a special agreement. So a universal scope for the pledge was offi - cially suggested by Mr Kellogg, American Secretary of State, and the resulting document was given his name in its title as well as M. Briand’s. It was widely accepted, yet its history as a peacemaker is not satisfactory, and to incorporate its principle in the Covenant of the League has been deemed necessary both to give it status and to prevent a rivalry of methods. Equally indicative of the focal value of the League is the registration with its Secretariat of treaties of mutual assistance negotiated by neighbouring nations and groups of nations. In all this the League has gained prestige and usefulness that is not associated with the Briand-Kellogg Pact.