SEEKING PEACE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 4 September 1924, Page 5

SEEKING PEACE

POLICY OF BRITAIN

ME MACDONALD INTERVIEWED

BY CABLE—PRESB ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT LONDON, Sept. 2. The Premier (Mr Ramsay MacDonald), interviewed en route to Geneva, said the road was clearer than ever for a real discussion on armaments and national security. Nobody had yet devised a satisfactory disarmament scheme, but we were nearer it as the various obstacles were successively removed.

“A lot of nonsepse has been written about the Anglo-Soviet Treaty,” said the Premier. “The whole position of the negotiations was altered by the Russians’ surrender, and we in no way altered our position. It is as clear as ever that unless a settlement of debts and obligations is reached there can be no loans or guarantees for Russia.”

Mr MacDonald defended the Government’s rejection of the mutual guarantee. pact, which would probably lead to the secession of certain British Doininions and other nations from the League of Nations, and for ever the closed door to the adherence of America and other States. Mr MacDonald emphatically disfavoured using force to enforce the decisions of the. League, which would only destroy its power. The Paris correspondent of the Daily Express says that" Mr MacDonald, en route to- Geneva, said that when the time is ripe there will be a general conference on disarmament, and he hoped and believed America would be represented. He deplored the events in Egypt, which had obliged him to strengthen and determine the British position in the Soudan. There could absolutely be no question of evacuation.

Mr MacDonald continued: “A clear' definition. of the word security is the first requisite for any real lasting advance towards a solutiqu of the disarmament problem. A vague expression such as security may mean many different things to different people. It is no use trying to build up, on a foundation of such differences. If you build on a false foundation in a decade people will he arming to the teeth as the only means of keeping the peace. Meantime it is possible to go forward by iheans of. arbitration as the surest method under present conditions.”