PEACE PLEDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1928, Page 9

PEACE PLEDGE.

FRENCH IDEAL. All Powers Should Sign Pact. REPLY TO AMERICA.

<By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyrights LONDON, March 30. A message from Paris says the French Cabinet has approved the text of the reply sent by the Foreign Minister, M. Briand, to Mr. F. B. Kellogg, United States Secretary of State, concerning the proposed pact to outlaw war.

The diplomatic correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" says there is reason to believe the French reply is in the nature of an acceptance of the proposed treaty, subject to the following conditions:— (1) That all the Powers, great and small, shall be permitted to become parties to it.

(2) That a violation of the pledge of mutual non-aggression by any Power will automatically release all the other signatories from the pledge.

Mr. Kellogg has already accepted the first condition, but it is improbable that he will accept the second.

The correspondent expresses the opinion that Mr. Kellogg is not likely to demur to the proposition that signatories attacked should be automatically freed from their pledge to resort to war, but this is a totally different thing from the French contention, expressed or implied, that in the event of an armed conflict between two of the signatories the remainder should be at unrestricted liberty to rush in and fight.

A dispatch from Berlin says it is authoritatively that Germany will gladly enter into negotiations for a' treaty to outlaw war on the invitation of the Governments of the United States and France.