The Press Tuesday, August 28, 1928. The Peace Pact.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 19400, 28 August 1928, Page 6

The Press Tuesday, August 28, 1928. The Peace Pact.

Now that the Kellogg Treaty has been signed it is important to remember that signatures in themselves have very little value, Although the Note to the Powers asking for the** signatures said, or seemed to say, that " this simple "procedure would bring mankind's "age-long aspiration for universal "peace nearer to practical fulfilment"than ever before in the history of the "worjd," what was meant was that the conclusion of the Treaty would have this, result if tne Governments concerned had the active support of their people, Without that support it can have no value of any kind. Perhaps, too, it will do no harm to say that at first the people of our own Empire were ft little uncertain in their support. Until it was made clear that there was nothing in the Treaty to restrict or impair the right of self-defence it seemed ! a little dangerous to assume obligations which might interfere with our liberty of action to protect ourselves. There was the thought, also—though it was never a really troublesome thought like the other—that America was perhaps asking her neighbours to do something which might conflict with their obligations as members of the League of Nations or t as signatories to the Treaties of Locarno. It took a good deal of explanation to remove these fears, and there is a good deal to be done yet to persuade the average man that this latest peace movement is to be taken more seriously than its predecessors. But so far as it is possible to speak of "the public" in such a case, there can be little doubt that our own nation, is now definitely behind the Treaty, and that it will be everywhere approved and ratified. We may not j all realise yet that what has takes j place is without precedent, and ft far bigger international sensation than J anything that has happened since the | end of thei war, but we do see dimly that there is nothing to prevent its sue- • cessful functioning but lack of intelli- ' gent support. For if the world really is approaching a more rational method of settling, its disputes than any it has been, willing to try before, the credit is not merely '. Mr KeUogg's, or M. Briand's, or Sir Austen Chamberlain's, j or any single individual's, but must be shared by all the men who have been workingsince the,beginning of the oentury. for ,this fulfilment of "mankind's age-long aspiration." It will gtill.be jemembered by some readers thai an Anglo-American Treaty' of Arbitration was arranged as far back as 1908, and extended in 1911, and actually signed, and approved by both Houses of the British Parliament and by§ the House of Representatives at vthei African Senate rejected it, or yfheQiex,o it had apt been rejected; it .would fafcys stood the shock of the Great War. What concerns us now is the fact'that the Treaty which bag just been »gne| ? iana which is' sure to be more widely signed, is an indirect re?!#©f, the patient work for peace that has been going on in Washington and London for twenty years. It is indeed remarkable to note the close similarity between the present Treaty's renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy and Sir Edward Grey's earn.eiptly expressed belief, in 19H/ that ". if Jtwo *>f the greatest nations in the frmiidL were to make it clear to the ." x whoJe world byan agreement that in would they go to #y«r would be the begin-?in^f<-ot:tfi'fti;ii»w.'or4er.of' things for "After' ssventee*i years of waiting, punctuated by an appalling reversion to'; the old order, we ar,e at,last able, to say not merely that two nations have done what Sir Edward Grey asked, but fifteen, and ,t)iat .the number may eventually include all the great nations o£ the earth.