"TOTALLY INCONSISTENT"

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 38, 13 August 1935, Page 8

"TOTALLY INCONSISTENT"

While expressing satisfaction with the short-term mo;u agreement, Australia's Prime Minister makes it clear thai this agreement merely decides a preliminary skirmish, lie I forecasts the character of the main battle, to come, by declaring thai I Britain's agreement with" Argentina 'is "totally inconsistent with the principles of the Ottawa pacts." It would be interesting to know exactly when tho Australian Government arrived at that conclusion. Tf the Argentine agreement is contrary to the spirit of the Ottawa pacts now,' it must have been contrary to that spirit from the beginning; and if the Australian Government thought so from Lhe beginning,' what steps (if any) were taken to represent that view to the. British Government before ' the Argentine Treaty was signed? Or, to put the question in another way, what inlra-Impcrial machinery exists for consultation before making foreign treaties that react on Em-, piFe trade, and how does that machinery function? Consultation is assumed by the public, but does it take place in an effective way?: When Mr. Lyons begins to make his "direct representations to the United States for a reduction of barriers against Australian products" a similar question wilF arise, but the Empire unit negotiating with the foreigner will be - Australia, not Britain. It is to' be hoped the result will not be an Australian-American agreement which some British Minister, using "the language of Mr. Lyons, will afterwards declare to be "totally inconsistent with~*the principles of Ottawa."