The Dominion FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 1928. AMERICA AND THE WORLD

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 83, 6 January 1928, Page 8

The Dominion FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 1928. AMERICA AND THE WORLD

1 The progress of the negotiations between the United States and France on the subject of the proposed treaty for the “outlawing of war” is becoming interesting. It will be remembered that in Mr Kellogg’s proposal on behalf of America, it was suggested that the treaty should be open for signature to any other nation willing to subscribe to its articles. M. Briand now says that if that is the case the proposals “will require most careful study in order not to prejudice the rights and duties of nations interested in the League Covenant and existing treaties.” The United States, from its position outside the League ot Nations, is at liberty to make independent proposals trenching upon the League’s activities. France, as a full member, is obliged to walk more circumspectly. It may be one thing, from the French point of view, to make a unilateral treaty with the United States, but an entirely different matter to enter into a pact, the effect of which would be to infringe the accepted boundaries of the League’s functions. - , <■ That France had no such intention in view is clear from the fact that the idea of a war outlawry treaty between the two countries actually originated with M. Briand, as witness the following quotation of a statement issued over his signature in April of last year: “For those whose lives are devoted to securing this living reality of a policy of peace, the United States and France, already appear before the world as morally in full agreement. If there were need for those two great democracies to give high testimony to their desire for peace and to furnish to other peoples an example more solemn, still France would be willing to subscribe publicly with the United States to any mutual engagement, tending to outlaw war, to use an American expression, as between these two countries. The renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy is a conception already familiar to the signatories to the Covenant of the League of Nations and of the treaties of Locarno. Every engagement entered into in this spirit by the United States toward another nation such as France would contribute greatly in the eyes of the world to broaden and strengthen the foundations on which the international policy of peace is being erected. These two great, friendly nations, equally devoted to the cause of peace, would furnish to the world the best illustration of the truth that the immediate end to be attained is not so much disarmament as the practical application of peace itself.”

“This appeal,” one American journal remarked at the time, “is to the American people. It is from the American people that an approving response is due.” Mr. Kellogg’s proposal, therefore, is really a reply to the French overture, but it clearly misses the point of M. Briand’s idea, which is not to usurp the functions of the League, but merely to offer an encouraging example to other nations. M. Briand’s objection to the terms of Mr. Kellogg’s offer is, in a sense, a delicate hint to America that her suggestion that other nations should be at liberty to sign the “outlawry treaty” is properly a matter for the League of Nations.