The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1928. A NEW PEACE-MAKER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 284, 30 November 1928, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1928. A NEW PEACE-MAKER.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

The Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee of the American House of Representatives is no doubt an important person in the United States. But Mr. F. Britten, who now answers to this description, appears to have transgressed all the bounds of official authority by entering into correspondence on his own account with the British Prime Minister on the subject of the limitation of armaments. Acting entirely on his own responsibility, Mr. Britten has suggested to Mr. Baldwin that his own Naval Affairs Committee should meet delegates from the British Parliament in a conference to discover if they cannot make some headway in the direction of international peace by further reducing the size of the world's navies and armies. This suggestion lends itself so obviously to criticism that it is difficult to know at which end to begin. In the first place, on the American side of the Atlantic, Mr. Britten has already been reminded that he is only an individual citizen of the Great Republic, and that as such he has no right to interfere in diplomatic affairs. Mr. Britten's excuse, that the Logan Act which forbids such intervention is only meant to prevent harm, whereas he is trying to do good, is too childish for serious discussion. Further, Mr. Britten, by offering to negotiate about terms and conditions of peace and war, has in the opinion of the State Department encroached upon the province of the President, in whose hands the conduct of foreign affairs is placed by the American Constitution. Finally, as a matter of tactics, Mr. Britten has evidently committed a grievous error in judgment by endeavouring to reserve such onerous responsibilities for members of the House of Representatives. For he must know that the Senate is extremely jealous of its right to control foreign policy, and is always ready to repudiate all official actions of which it disapproves.

Regarding the matter from the British standpoint, there is no reason why Mr. Baldwin or the Foreign Office should take Mr. Britten's proposal seriously. In an official sense our Foreign Minister does not know Mr. Britten, and need concern himself only with the views of the American Government as transmitted through the American Ambassador. But Mr. Baldwin is both courteous and tactful, and he realises that to reject Mr. Britten's awkward and blundering advances on technical grounds might arouse popular resentment in the United States. He has therefore communicated the message to the House of Commons, and.we are assured that it will there receive "most friendly consideration. ,. But a reference to the "nearness of the general election" indicates that some easy pretext will be found for" covering up and shelving an incident that must be unique.