THE OLD DIPLOMACY

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 71, 24 March 1926, Page 9

THE OLD DIPLOMACY

AND LEAGUE MACHINERY

INEVITABLE COLLISION.

(Published in The Times.) (Beceived 24th March, 11 a.m.) LONDON, 23rd March. The Geneva correspondent of "The Times" states that the discussions there in connection with the League of Nations failed' because it was the first clash between traditional diplomacy and the League's machinery. Diplomacy is normally slow, but rapidity is essential to a Leaguo meeting, causing a terrific intensity of negotiations between fifty nations necessitating six days for work which, by the old methods would be done in one. Yet the ramifications, were endless, and the trail could be traced to the Far East and South America with a maze of side tracks' resulting in issues too great to be settled within ten days. Probably Sir Austen Chamberlain or.red throughout the first week in negotiating solely with the Locarno signatories. Ajnon'g those excluded was Senator Franco, of Brazil, who may have resented his • exclusion, resulting in eventual stubbornness. Others, including Spain, also objected to Sir Austen Chamberlain's methods: M. Briand persuaded Germany to accept the Swedish and Czecho-Slovak-ian offers, but.the ship: he steered was laden with the paraphernalia of the old diplomacy and crashed on tho League's hull with the result that both were damaged, disclosing* the old barque's cunning dodges, threats, and hidden motives. ' .-, ; ■■ ■;: -■ '. ■ ■ ■■ . ' The League should; not bo blamed for the unsavoury business^. because.it revealed tho badness of the old diplo-

maey, and alao proved that even within ' the League a nation .cannot be forced to a policy which it disapproves.