Evening Post. SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1924. TREATY OBLIGATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 82, 5 April 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1924. TREATY OBLIGATIONS

The ratification of Imperial treaties, about which Canada seems to be much more concerned than any other Dominion, was the subject of an interesting message from Ottawa yesterday. The occasion was a speech by the Premier, Mr. Mackenzie Zing, regarding .Canada's ratification of the Peace Treaty with Turkey. The purport of "this speech was reported to be as follows :—

Canada claims the right to discuss in Parliament the extent of its obligations in respect to; any treaty. So far as the Lausanne Conference is concerned, the Canadian Government has taken the view that as Canada was not represented it feels it would not be justified.in recommending to the Dominion Parliament any concurrence in the treaty.

The first of these sentences is no better than a truism and a superfluity. The second goes to the opposite extreme of paradox and inconsequence. Canada, of course, has the right to discuss in her own Parliament the extent of her obli--gations under the-Lausanne Treaty or any other Treaty or anything else she pleases. < It is a right .which nobody disputes/ and there is therefore no merit. in asserting. But we pass from platitude to. perversity when we come to the.attitude of the Canadian Government, to this particular Treaty: "As Canada was not represented, it felt it would not be justified in recommending to the Dominion Parliament any concurrence in the Treaty." It is difficult to understand how even the most morbid national egotism has mistaken such a statement as this for reasoning or patriotism.

That Canada's eagerness to paddle her own canoe—or eagerness which, in the case of the, Halibut Treaty, seemed to be extended to the paddling, of the Imperial canoe also—should make her resentful of any control or even advice from outside is easily intelligible. That even in such a matter as the settle-, nient of the peace terms with Turkey, of which she knows nothing and, as may be inferred from her freezing reception of Mr.-Lloyd George's appeal for the protection o£ the Dardanelles, cares nothingj she is too proud to 'submit to representation by the experts of the Foreign Office is als6 intelligible. But' that, .^af ter Lord Curzon and his staff had muddled through an appallingly difficult business at Lausanne to the best of their poor ability, the Canadian Government should be unable to say whether the result was good, bad, or indifferent, and whether it deserved to be adopted with or without modifications or rejected by the Canadian .Parliament, is almost incomprehensible. If with the Treaty duly signed, sealed, and delivered before it, the Canadian Government finds itself incompetent to express any opinion on its merits, of what conceivable value would its help have been in the framing of the document ? And what is going to happen to the peace of the world while the Government and the Parliament of Canada persist in maintaining this agnostic attitude and the' Treaty remains unratified? " . , ' ' ' /"

The Treaty of Lausanne is apparently threatened with the vsame fate by which the Treaty' of Versailles was overtaken. It represents the best that Europe could do, but it has failed to find favour on the other side of the Atlantic. And it will apparently be the duty of Canada, as it was the duty of the United States after the rejection of the Versailles Treaty by the Senate, to make peace on her own account! That will be an infinitely more difficult task than merely revising the Treaty on which the Canadian Government is unable to express an opinion, or even than playing a silent part at the Lausanne Conference. How would Canada1 set about it V If she knows little about Turkey, Turkey may be safely presumed to know less about her. " Britain we know, and the Anzacs we know, but who are ye?" might be the reply from Angora if Canada, through her Foreign Minister or 'her Ambassa-. dor, were to seek to reopen any of the issues which Ismet Pasha and his colleagues were supposed to have settled at Lausanne months ago. And the ignorance would not be without excuse, for neither at Lausanne nor at Sevres nor anywhere else has the- Canadian Foreign Office yet made itself known to the outside world. •

Assuming that this difficulty was overcome by an introduction from Downing Street—as it probably could be, for the courtesy of Downing Street is proof even against the severest of snubs — Canada would then find that her troubled had just begun. "What points 'would she have to suggest ? Would she be claiming advantages that had been denied to Britain and France? By what arguments could she hope to exact better terms from the stubbornness, the duplicity, and the procrastination which • had "; baffled the united Powers of Europe? And how would Canada make her points goo,d after argument had failed and the Conference had broken up? The whole thing is, of course, a farce, but it is worth while to, look it sauarely in the face in order to get the full measure of the absurdity to which » Dominion commits

itself by these extravagant airs and this solemn pretension of a nationhood which at its own swe.et will can claim all the'benefits and repudiate all the obligations of the Imperial connection. If Canada does not ratify this Treaty or sign a better one after a second Lausanne Conference, then apparently, according to her theory, in which Australia and South Africa concur, she will be still '" at , war with Turkey, and it may be the painful duty of the fishing fleet, to which it is understood that her navy has been reduced, to force the passage ot the Dardanelles and bombard Constantinople. Let us hope that Mr. Mackenzie King's diplomacy will avert this peril.to'the peace of the world. . ' ,