A NEW FORCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 2, 3 January 1925, Page 6

A NEW FORCE.

Tiie man in the United States who, after the President and the Secretary of State, should be watched by those who take an interest in American foreign policy is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of tbe Senate. Until he died in November, Henry Cabot Lodge was Chairman of this Committee, and as such be was more responsible than any other single American for the defeat of President Wilson's policy of acceptance of tho Versailles Treaty. Lodge was a Puritan aristocrat from Boston, a member of one of the first families of that city of whom it has been said that "the (abots talk only to Lowells, and the Lowells speak only to God." Senator Borah is a different type. He is a man of the .Middle West, lacking Lodge* Xew Kngland culture, but full of energy of the more primitive kind, and moved by a sort of idealism that was lacking in toe older man. Senator Borah is a masterful man. and be will try to be a I least as powerful as Lodge was at tiie bead of the Foreign Relations Committee. He silled with Lodge in opposition to the League of Nations, but it is said of him that in all matters touching peace and trade relations and the penal clauses of the Treaty of Versailles he is at tue opposite pole of thought. Lodge was a complete isolationist. Senator Borah's first important action as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is to propose to the President that he call a conference; lo consider economic jiroblems and reduction of armaments. He will not have tlte League of Nations, and he ''frowns upon tue Geneva protocol, but he suggests tbat an attempt lie made outside the League lo abolish war. It is satisfactory to know that so eminent nn American as Senator Borah realises that America cannot absolutely isolate herself from world economics and polities, but liis plan reads like a determination to have nothing to do with any international organisation lor peace that does not originate through the United States Government and conform strictly to American wishes. The rest of tiie world will reflect that there is already such an organisation in existence, and that some .50 nations belong to it. Why. then, should a fresh start be made? The Administration is bound to be embarrassed by tin- Senator. He wishes to recognise Bussia. but Mr. Hughes, the Secretary of state, does not. He wishes to call an economic conference, but the cautious President is for moving very guardedly in that direelion. There cannot be such a conference without consideration of war debts, and the Government has laid it down that war debts must be kept separate from reparations, and that tiny must be paid. Senator Borah, with bis moral earnestness and his exceptional energy (to say nothing of possible ambition to go higher still in polities), j? going to make things uncomfortable for a President whose cnief sources of strength are his silence an-1 his immobility.