STEPS TO PACT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 65, 14 September 1925, Page 5

STEPS TO PACT

THE CONFERENCE WITH GERMANY

SPECULATIONS AT GENEVA

' (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPXRIGHT.) (AUSTRALIAN-HEW 2BALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) (Received 14th September, 10 a.m.) GENEVA, 13th September;. Mr. Chamberlain's reserve at the 1 interview with the journalists on Thins-, day concerning the invitation to Heir Stresemann was due to the absence of Italy's approval of the draft invitation. The Italian reply arrived on Thursday nightj and its nature is best indicated by the fact that M._ Briarid left for Paris in' the morning, and told the journalists he was gratified at the way events were shaping. He was sanguine that there would soon be a Pact covering the Western and Eastern frontiers, but he added the reservation that everything depended upon whether Herr Stresemann would survive the cross-cur-rents of German party politics, ,

It is learned that Herr ■, Stresemann. is j invited to a conference in the first fortnight in October. THE DECEASED PROTOCOL With Mi 1. Chamberlain's departure tonight, the i«;o big men of the Assembly have gone, and it is safe to assume that the early part of the week will find the Third-Commission settling down to prepare a formula, 'perhaps innocuous, oa which the Assembly will later hold a debate, ori the predominant "issue, "Security, arbitration, and ; disarmament," as a prelude to the Allied Ministers' Conference at. the end of the month. ' Delegate after delegate is now rising in th» Assembly to pour out words o£ lament; over the demise of the Protocol,; with a pious hope that its spirit and principle will soon be embodied iu-a system of regional" agreements. '.. .' \ .:•'■■ ■ •'... '■' ,;

This, is notably the case with, the speeches of the Japanese delegate, Baron Ishii,: and the Belgian, M.~ Hyinans. /

DOUBTING GOVERNMENTS

Baron Ishii declared that doubts about the practical application of tho Protocol had seized: many Governments, each of which viewed it in tho light of its own particular circumstances., There -was apparently a fear that regional agreements would revive' tho pre-war instar bility, but provided ' that 110110 of the agreements weredirected; against / any nation, and all■■; wew" iiieiudcdj. in-, tho principle' of arbitration,;.jtho,. objections would assuredly • disappear, .and (the League would bo invested - in<. tHe aureole of a new-era. •■' ' '/-y-:*;^ ■■:/:■• .;.;,•■'■.-.', i. .

•'M. Hymans .was emphatic ',that ,theg» must be definite/physical sanctions, excellent though moral sanctions ] were. Even • with the Protocol, mutual Pacts would have been necessaryV would, in fact, have.been its very pillars of security ; paving the, way tp disarmament. \

"THE FIRST STORY OF THE WORLD" .

. . : M. Boncour, in'his speech, included a graceful comment on Mr.' Chamberlain's allusion to the illogical basis of the British Empire. M. Boncour said : "Where Mr. Chamberlain sees only, illogicality, we see only the splendid continuity of English history) its solution of each problem, on ,its merits, forming a regular sequence of events."- When viewed in the,light of"the real underlying basis of the Empire's institutions ■and requirements, indeed; it was a story which Kipling could rightly, call "The First Story of the World,"" ."',"■