U.S. REMINDER TO EUROPE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22414, 30 May 1938, Page 9

U.S. REMINDER TO EUROPE

OBLIGATIONS UNDER KELLOGG PACT “MORAL WEIGHT BEHIND DEMOCRACIES” ALARM AT INTERNATIONAL SITUATION (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.) (Received May 29, 9.15 pm.) WASHINGTON, May 28. Alarmed at the international situation, the Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull) has issued a statement reminding the Governments of Europe of their obligations to keep the peace under the Kellogg-Briand anti-war pact. “With reference to the critical situation involving the countries of Central Europe, I desire to say that the Government of the United States has been following recent developments with close and anxious attention,” stated Mr Hull. “Nearly 10 years ago the United States signed the Paris Treaty providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. There are now 63 countries a party to that treaty, in which they agreed that a settlement or solution of all disputes would never be sought except by pacific means. That pledge is not less binding now tlian when it was entered into. It is binding on all the parties. “We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that any outbreak of hostilities anywhere in the world injects into world affairs a factor of general disturbance the ultimate consequence of which no man can foresee, and is liable to inflict on all nations incalculable permanent injuries. “The people of this country have, in common with all nations, a desire for stable and permanent conditions of peace, justice, and progress; and a most earnest desire for peace being maintained, no matter where or in what circumstances there are controversies between nations.”

The statement is regarded as puling America’s moral weight behind the efforts of the European democracies to prevent war, in view of the critical week-end caused by the Czechoslovakian problem.