The Franklin Times PUBLISHED ON MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1924. RUSSIAN TREATY.

Franklin Times, Volume 14, Issue 911, 13 August 1924, Page 4

The Franklin Times PUBLISHED ON MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1924. RUSSIAN TREATY.

“We nothing extenuate, nor aught set down in malice.”

THE action of the Labour Government in power in England in leaving out the King’s name in the treaty with Russia lias caused somej surprise. The Russian State has no formal head. The conduct of the British Government in effacing llie head of the British State from a treaty which

ought to lie made in his name only has astounded the Empire. This was done, a newspaper has virtually told us, with corroboration by the London Labour organ, through a desire not io hurt the feelings of the Soviets. It seems that because ihe Soviets have an objection to recognised kings, the King of England is to be hidden be-

hind a fiction —the fiction that the Soviet is dealing with Ihe British Government, not with the King. The King's Government, then, has made a treaty with a foreign Power without the King. It is a discourtesy, of a grave kind, to a King. It is more: if is a broad iiint that Ihe King can be dispensed with at will by any Government under the leadership of the King's principal constitutional adviser, it is tiie growing fashion to declare Hud in a limited monarchy the Sovereign is a cypher. Eliminate the cypher on a great treaty-making occasion, and the step to a republic is short and easy. The world iias been accustomed to She absence of the King, who doesn’t matter. It will the more

readily accept his suppression in favour of a President. The process may be called the creation of an atmosphere. In such an atmosphere Royalty can go out on greased skids without anybody suspecting anything until the King is safely stowed away in “foreign purls.”

The Labour .journal, after admitting this theory of "balance” —which creates an atmosphere favourable to the bloodless culling of Royal throats —explains that there is another reason for the eliminalion of the King

from this Russian treaty. "The Dominions,” says the new oracle, “are no I parties In treaties unless they explicitly adopt them.” As treaties signed by the King automatically bind all the Dominions, it was necessary to “lind a new formula binding only Britain”; so that Britain is bound in

this case wilhouf the King. Can the King, in case he disapproves of the treaty, dismiss his Ministers, in Hie hope of replacing them by Ministers with the backing of a Parliamentary majority in favour of bis view? He can, of course. If be does, and succeeds according to the requirements of the Constitution, he will be able to repudiate the treaty concluded without, his name, by simply defying anybody to show his signature to it. The omission of the King’s name is one of those manoeuvres that defeats itself by going too far. Supporters of the New Zealand Labour Party should take warning.