Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1925. A PROVOCATIVE SPEECH

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 54, 12 September 1928, Page 10

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1925. A PROVOCATIVE SPEECH

After a long, long wait the turn of the optimists came on the 27th August, and it lasted without substantial interruption for a whole fortnight. The signing of the Peace Pact which. had been accepted by nearly all the leading nations and may soon include every nation, great or small, was regarded in Berlin as of sufficient importance to bring Dr. Stresemann from his sick bed to see the German flag floating. in friendship and honour along with those of the other nations and to be the first German Foreign Minister officially welcomed in the French Capital since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The two nations whose quarrels have been a standing "menace to the peace of Europe had previously been induced to conclude a genuine Treaty of Peace at Locarno. They were now to sign a more comprehensive renunciation of war in a document designed to include all the nations. M. Briand, who pre- | sided, touched the significance of German participation with his normal felicity:— ■ "What greater lesson could be offered jto the civilised.. world than that Assembly in which, for the signing of a pact against war, Germany, of her own free will, took part on a level with her former adversaries? Dr. Stresemann, German Foreign Minister, had laboured for three years for the general principles of peace which were hero involved. . . . The Pact is a direct blow to the menace of war. Henceforth wo have a sacred duty to do all that can and must be done so that the hope will not be disappointed. Peace is proclaimed, but it still remains necessary to organise it in the face of difficulties. That is to be the work of to-morrow. Exactly a fortnight later M. Briand ! himself was given at Geneva a striking opportunity of promoting the organisation of the peace which had been proclaimed at Paris. It was a matter for universal regret that neither of the two men who had shared with him the honours of Locarno and the labours of both the subsequent ordinary Assemblies of the League was well enough to meet him at Geneva again. But as personally at once the most tactful and the most eloquent of the three, and as the only one of them representing a country whose attitude admits of any doubt, M. Briand might well have been' regarded as the one who could least easily be spared from the present session of the Assembly. Yet the effect of his speech reported yesterday has been such that not only would either Sir Austen Chamberlain or Dr. Stresemann have done far better, but it would have been a blessing for the cause of peace if M. Briand could have been on the sick-list, too. His speech, we are told, lasted ninety minutes, and was characterised by his usua' vigour and eloquence. It terminated with an ovation from the Latin American and Littlo Entente delegates, the customary fervent reception from them. The vigour and the eloquence may be appreciated even in the cabled summary, but the tact, the courtesy, the consideration for the feelings of others, and the capacity for handling a delicate issue without offence, which are also characteristic of M. Briand, were conspicuously absent. The "ovation" with which he was rewarded by the Latin American delegates and those representing the Little Entente—the small States to the east of Germany which are in alliance with France—was as significant as the anger of the Germans and the silence both of the British delegates and of the British Press. ! The opening of M. Briand's speech \ • —or of the crucial part of it—appears to have been quite unexceptionable:— Wo are, ho said, not party politicians sitting in an international congress, but men taking into aeconn' every factor affecting world peace I havo often been accused of being a niero spoochmaker—not a man of action. I am confident that Herr Mueller does not share that view. The Locarno Pact was not a speech. Mr. Kellogg's Peace Pact might be more reasonably called a speech, because it represents words und good intentions with no sanctions behind them and therefore with the consequences of a breach quite undetermined. But the Treaty of Locarno, while just as much the voluntary outcome of good-will as the Peace Pact, is as binding as the Treaty of Versailles, and therefore enjoys a double advantage. By his work at Locarno M. Briand certainly showed himself to be something better than "a mere speechmaker," but whether ono regards him as speechmaker or as treaty-maker the attitude which he has now taken up at Geneva appears to be equally incomprehensible. As he began to proclaim before the ink

of iho signatures of the Locarno Treaty was dry and had consistently maintained ever since, the spirit of Locarno is of even greater value than ils letter. But how much of that spirit was displayed in his speech on Monday? and what hope will remain for either the Locarno Treaty or ihe Peace Pact if the suspicious, censorious, and provocative spirit that he did display is to animate even the best friends of peace in Fiance and to be reciprocated, perhaps with interest, from the other side of the Rhine? If M. Poincare had delivered such a speech it would have very deplorable results at such a time but not very surprising, and Europe would have looked with confidence to M. Briand to supply the antidote. But now he distributes the poison himself and completes the grim joke by wondering that they do not like the taste of it in Berlin. And with Sir Austin Chamberlain and Dr. Streseinann invalided to whom are we to look for the antidote?