SECURITY PACTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 108, 10 May 1939, Page 10

SECURITY PACTS.

BRITAIN AND RUSSIA.

NATURE OF PROPOSALS.

"(Ey PERTINAX.)

PARIS, April 21. Negotiation* between Great Britain and Riweia and Great Britain and Turkey and also -between France and Russia and France and Turkey are progressing favourably, and nobody here appears to entertain any doubt about the result. The treaties now under discussion between London, Paris, Moscow ana Angora are bound to prove of supreme importance. So long a * they have not been brought into existence neither Rumania nor Greece, nor even Poland, will lx< in a position to put up a bold resistance to Hitlerian Germany, as help from France : <nd fireat Britain alone might possibly fall of tlteir requirements. The set of Franco -Br it i.-di-Russian-Turkish treaties are to be regarded as the real framework of a new system oft all-round assistance. The following details about the proposal- made to Russia by Park and London mav be of interest:— The purpose of the French nogot intoiw is to modify in euch a way the Franco-Soviet treaty of May 2, 103.-), as to make it work .automatically iri an emergency. In other worde, both signatories would assist cadi other directly one of them was involved in a conflict with (formally, without having to consult the League of Nations Council in (Jeneva or to wait for the enemy actually to invade the territory of either' State. 'Thus" would be swept away all the limitations and restrictions which M. Laval had considered wise to introduce into the Franco-Ruseian pact four years ago. The British Scheme. As to the British scheme, upon which M. Stalin will soon have to pronounce himself, it is believed to consist of two distinct parts. Tμ tin- first place, Soviet Russia is asked to extend her "imrantcc to all States on her borders except Finland; namely, Estonia, Latvia. Lithuania, Poland and Rumania. M. Stalin has indeed always eaid in the past that Hiissin could never afford to allow Estonia and Latvia to l>e taken !>v an enemy. As to the fiirm of guarantee required from liiiKxhi, it can be said that the M«sraw fJovernment would undertake to provide the States mentioned above on their formal demand with the. supplies and the kind of support they might need. Briefly, Soviet Ru-sia would act as a huge , reserve in the background to the neighbouring nations, and those nations would i'itw help from Russia of their own free will airl in accordance with the turn taken by warlike operations. The convention which M. Titulescu. the then Rumanian Foreign Minister, initialled with M. Litvinoir on July 14, 10:S(i. and which lapsed after M. Tilnltvcu's dismissal from cilice at tjie e-itl of August of the same year, i-tandrt as a model of tlie practical arrangement to be made in the ca~o of each of Russia's neighbours. In article .'i of that convention it was stated that Russian troops would not entoi Rumanian territory except at the request Rumanian <iovernment. and in article 4 it was provided that at thy conclusion of hostilities all Russian forces, would cross to the left bank of the Dniester River, which murk* the frontier between Rumania and Russia. Mutual Assistance. Secondly, upon those guaranteed clauses i'.vailabli- to the State* coterminous with Kn.-sia from the Baltic to the Black Sea would ! be superimposed a pact of mutual assistance ; intended to secure the direct co-operation of i (ireat Britain aiid Russia fo"r the defence of the territorial integrity ajid political inde- j peiidenee of both signatories and by their ' common agreement of the secondary" powers j which |ian-(ieriiianist expansion might jcopar- I (Use. in conformity with the declarations made I by Chamberlain in the House of ('ominous mi March l>l and on April IS, (i and 13. I That Anglo-Russian mutual assistance j would probably find it- main instrument in I an air pact, but would not be ! restricted to it h tli" .general tenor of the; agreements a* they are uo-v discus, .mI. It is to he hoped that neither the British nor the French Ministers will attempt to postpone or delay their conclusion. The urgent task of I (ireat Britain and France is to meet Oermanv with a force Kiiperior to the material power now at the disposal of the Fuehrer. In no other way can the democracies be saved from a regime of permanent terror inflicted upon I them by the totalitarian States, or from the I warlike catastrophe to which eucli a regime would inevitably lead.y