The Press Thursday, July 23, 1925. The Security Pact.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18441, 23 July 1925, Page 8

The Press Thursday, July 23, 1925. The Security Pact.

It is in keeping with the mystery in which the Security Pact has been wrapped for six months that the "Daily "Express" regards the German replyto the Allied Note as the end of the negotiations, and that the "Daily "Telegraph" treats it as a very favourable beginning. It will be remembered that the ' whole Empire was stirred last month by a "semi"official" account from Paris that Britain had consented, in effect, to advance her frontiers to the Rhine, had agreed that a violation of them by Germany would constitute a casus b&tli, and "in order to "guarantee this frontier had undertaken to place at the disposal "of Trance and Belgium her en"Ure military, naval, and air forces." It will be remembered also, however, that we did not ourselves accept this account, and we are glad to have proof in the official correspondence, to-day to hand, of the soundness of our comment that "it was not conceivable that "the British Government had given any 'kind of support direct or indirect,'any "pledge in writing, or any undertaking "in the preliminary conversations, that "in any and every dispute between "Prance and Germany it would 'light " 'on the side of France.' " There was never any undertaking, we now know, lo do anything, and the Note that h?is this week been received from Germany is no more than a comment by Ber'm on the Allied comment on the original Berlin Note of February 9th. And the original German Note was not of course a draft pact or treaty. It was the offer of a pact or treaty on certain terms. The German Government declared itself willing to conclude with the "Powers interested in "the Rhine" a treaty which should be inspired by three definite principles: (1) Repudiation of all idea of war between the contracting States; (2) strict respect for the existing territorial situation in the Rhineland; and (3) a guarantee of tho demilitarisation of the Rhineland provided for under Articles 42 and 43 of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany offered also as a corollary to this principal agreement to conclude arbitration treaties guaranteeing a "peaceful settlement of juridical and '"political conflicts." That is to say, there was an offer of territorial treaties, the violation of m'hich might, and if persisted in would, involve a'resort to force, and of arbitration treaties which, the French Government itself admitted, "might be enforced by less violent means; and all that has happened oh the Allied side Since that offer, which it is to be repeated was made as far back as the second week in February, is that France and Britain have agreed on the" form of their reply. The whole period between February 9th and June Bth was devoted to discussions between Paris and London on the meaning of the German offer, and the nature of the. communication, if any, that should be sent as a joint reply by the two Allied Governments. The French Government's original intention was to reply, "not in the name of. the Allies, but in "its own name in agreement with its "Allies," and the explanation of, the preposterous story telegraphed from Paris during the first week in June was simply that Britain, after much recasting of the ftotc from both sides, had at last approved of the terms of the reply which aParis was to forward to Berlin in the name of both Powers.

And now we are in danger of a second.scare. The picturesque comments of the "Daily Express" will lead some readers to suppose that the fate of "our young men" has been since June Bth in the hands of the German Government—that Britain pledged them to France and Europe, and that if they "will not now be sent to die in "the Danzig Corridor" it is not Mr Chamberlain's fault. The fact is that Britain and France have got no further in their negotiations than to have agreed on and communicated to Germany tho general terms on which further discussions might be carried on. They took seventeen weeks considering the original German offer, and Germany has now been meditating for six weeks on the terms on which the Allies will consult further with her.- If the terms of the German reply prove to be such that no further discussions will take place, that may mean that we have been saved from a possible* entanglement in European wars. But our sons have not been offered to any nation yet, and until they have been the "Express" is merely trading in sensations.