AMERICA’S TWO VOICES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 202, 9 August 1928, Page 4

AMERICA’S TWO VOICES

VS/HEN commenting some days ago on the qualified acceptance accorded by Britain and France to the Kellogg Pact for the outlawry of war, it was suggested that we should learn what real value the American Government attached to it when the international discussion on the linuta tion of naval armaments came to be renewed. We have not, however, been asked to wait as long as this to get some very significant inkling on this point. A day or two back we had a New York cable message quoting the American Secretary for the Navy, Mr. C. D. Wilbur, as declaring that “the only way to prepare for peace is to protect those who desire it by preventing war by preparation for war.” This invoca tion of the old Latin adage in paraphrased form, coupled with an intimation that 'America’s ambitious programme of naval construction is to be carried out, scarcely squares with all that Mr. Wilbur’s colleague, Mr. Kellogg, has been telling us about the Pact. According to him this solemn pledge to “renounce war as an instrument of national policy” was to so dispose the nations to ptace that the time would soon come when armaments might safely be abolished. This doctrine does not seem to appeal tp Mr. Wilbur, who must also feel that he has the Government and the Legislature behind him in the attitude he adopts. Far from placing any great reliance upon the Outlawry Pact, he says that the only assurance of peace his fellow citizens may get is in a navy so strong that no one will venture to question the actions of their country. It would thus be difficult- to find two points of view so utterly opposed to one another as those to which the American Secretary of State and the American Secretary for the Navy have given expression. There may be some logical way of reconciling them, but it must be admitted that it is hard to find.

Mr. Kellogg, by the way, according to one of to-day’s messages, is experiencing some hesitation as to how he should deal with Soviet Russia's demands to be allowed to sign his Pact. No doubt he realises that to admit a Government that is doing its best everywhere to stir up civil war would not be in any way likely to fortify his pet scheme in the minds of other nations. At the same time, Ije Jias stated his hope that it would ultimately secure universal acceptance. So he finds himself in something of a quandary over Russia, whose present Government his own refuses to recognise. What his objection is to Spain coming in as an original signatory to the Pact has yet to be explained. The later message hints that he may leave it to M. Briand, the real originator of the outlawry plan to solve the problems for him.