GERMANY AND THE LEAGUE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3352, 20 December 1926, Page 2

GERMANY AND THE LEAGUE.

The fruits of Locarno have lingered long, hut now they are garnered. Germany in the League, makes it a veritable League of Nations., The Treaty of Locarno, signed with so much empressement in our Foreign Office, will now come into force, the -'‘Locarnospirit ’ ’ it is hoped will no w begin to permeate Europe. The bitter disappointment which Locarno came to mean has taught us not to pitch our hopes too high. That Germany, instead of being an adversary, is now an ally, does not clear the atmosphere intirelv. But it does give hope that the problems which could only worsen while Germany was outside the pale may now be tackled with some hope of settlement. \ - The importance of the treaty Jay in the renunciation made by Germany. She expressed her readiness to accept, voluntarily, the whole of the provisions of the Treaty of Versa U'cs, relating to her western frontier, provided she were met in the same spirit and received a corresponding guarantee from her western neighbours. She, in fact, laid for the first time the foundation of a real peace. This renuncia.iou Ims been truly described as an act of moral disarmament. To turn from the ideal to the real we must look at the statement issued vesterdav bv the German Governmenet. It describes the entry of Germany into the League as the greatest moral success of German foreign policy since the war, but says that m rejoicing over what has been attained it must not be forgotten that the concrete advantages of this success have still to be sought. The reconciliation and understanding would be incomplete If normal political a it'd economic conditions could not be restored in the .nun territory, and if Germany were not admitted at the first opportunity that afforded to a place among the nations which share the colonial outlets f the world. Its political reaction on the Keich has been to gain support for the Republican Government. The Nationalist party is forced’to speak of the election of Germany at Geneva as a diplomatic defeat. For its benefit the more prac-tical-minded point out that Germany enters the League with full honouis, welcomed by all the nations therein and takes alone*, without Spain or Boland, the permanent seat promised her. a The increase in the number of the nonpermanent seats is made with Her approval, signified by her representation on the special committee as long ago as last May. In the actual election of States to fill those seats Germany w• u have a vote. With this result except the Nationalist Press is clearly quite satisfied, and how far the Nationalist Press represents the view of the Nationalist Party in present circumstances, or how far the party has a view to represent, i* open to question. It is in France that we find scepticism most in evidence. The “Temps’ ’ says: —“While nothing can wipe out the memory of the Great War, France has shown Per sincere determination to make peace, and it is France who, by making sacrifices necessary for the Locarno policy to become a reality, has opened for Germany the road to Geneva.”

“The wise course, it would seem, consists in not abandoning oneself to the too easy illusions which the entry of Germany into the League creates in certain quarters, in not expecting a kind of spontaneous and miraculous reconciliation of all peoples, but in not being afraid to try an experiment which ought to be made if it is sincerely desired to consolidate peace) and the risks of which it is the business of prudence and firmness to limit. Because Germany is admitted to-day into the League on a footing of equality with the victorious Powers which founded the international institution of Geneva, it is not a question of forgetting the past or of disregarding the teaching of the history of yesterday, the effects of which still make themselves so painfully felt by us.” “Germany,” adds the “Temps” more cordially, “is not welcomed to the Assembly and Council of the League of Nations as a victor too long ignored, but as a great nation whose co-opera-tion on the basis of the existing treaties is important for the political and economic restoration of Europe, and to whom, in spite of past errors, there is a determination to extend confidence for a supreme experiment of a lasting organisation of peace.”