PACIFIC TREATY

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 53, 4 March 1922, Page 5

PACIFIC TREATY

a Secret agreement , ALLEGED

SENATOR HITCHCOCK'S CHARGES .-^••^ . " AMERICA INVOLVED IN AN ALLIANCE. ',

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPTRIonT.)

(AUSTRALIAN - NBW ZEALAND CAILC ASSOCIATION.)

(Received March 4, 9 a.m.)

WASHINGTON, 2nd March,

Senator Hitchcock, addressing the Senate, attacked the Four-Power Pacific Treaty, declaring that unless it were amended or satisfactory Teaervationo made he would-Vole against its ratification. Senator Hitchcock, who was tho leader of a fight for the League of Nations Covenant, said the Pacific' Treaty was not included in tho conference call or agenda, and it was negotiated' so secretly that not even Senator Lodge or Senator Underwood was able to enlighten the Senate. He was shocked to learn that even .President Harding did not understand the Treaty or know of a secret agreement between the negotiators concerning its meaning.

Senator Hitchcock 'declared that the Treaty had been conceived hi secrecy, and suggests an alliance which binds the four Powers for the purpose of monopolising the Pacific Islands. If Australia was threatened with attack the United States was bound to join the other Powers for the purpose of agreeing to its defence, -although attack .may have been provoked. Baron .Uchida has just informed the Japanese Parliament that. the Four-Power Treaty was in.tended to extend the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. If the Japanese interpret the Treaty as ■ah Alliance they were likely to act under its provisions as an Alliance.. He did not. like 1 the idea, of guaranteeing Japanese and British possession of tho ex-German islands in the Pacific. .