THE FOUR POWER PACT.

Evening Star, Issue 21433, 9 June 1933, Page 6

THE FOUR POWER PACT.

Atxeb many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip, the Four Power Pact ha§ been signed—at least, it has been initialled, which we may hope will be as good as signing What value that achievement will have for the world is still to be proved, but Signor Mussolini has high hopes of it. “It creates,” he explains, “ a better atmosphere, enabling liquidation of the questions separating France and Italy and France and Germany, and guarantees ten years’ peace.” Mr Ramsay MacDonald had high hopes of it when he set forth its objects to the House of Commons, after discussions to which he was a party in Rome and Paris. The first object, he explained, was to afford means of giving effect to clause 19 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which provides for the “ reconsideration of treaties which have become inapplicable, and the consideration of international conditions whose continuance might endagor the peace of the world.” Even M. Clemenceau, that strongest of French Nationalists, had admitted that conditions might develop in which there would have to be revision of treaties. The Pact provided that a period of ten years should be devoted to that work, during which none of them would go to war to hasten the process. The four Powers would co-operate together, within the framework of the League, for this and other peaceful purposes, but the cooperation of all the other States would be welcomed and required. For its most immediate advantages the Pact is expected to clear the worst obstructions from the path of the Disarmament Conference, and if that assembly can show real results the World Economic Conference will commence its business under the best auspices. If only those advantages are achieved the agreement will be richly justified, and a new meed of honour will have been earned by Signor Mussolini. It was his influence, pretty obviously, that persuaded Herr Hitler to accept the Pact. What it may bo worth as a ten years’ guarantee will depend in some degree on how much has been spilled from it in tho slips before referred to. The Pact has now appeared in several revised drafts, each a little more attenuated than the ope before it, but II Duce still declares that none of its spirit has been lost, and predicts for it a " high spiritual value.” The guarantees of pence, “one sure if tho other fails,” have succeeded each other in a steady progress since the League was formed without doing much to soothe the world’s misgivings, but if Great Britain. Franco, Italy, and Germany can all agree to “seek peace and ensue it,” where questions that make the greatest differences for two of them are concerned, that should be as good a surety as Pacts can furnish. “ The Italian people,” Signor Mussolini has said, “ aro guided in their foreign policy by tho firm intention not to disturb the peace, and to collaborate in every way possible in tho political, economic, and moral reconstruction of Europe.” His admirer Hitler, who has followed him in worse examples, will win most noclaim by following him in this, i?