THE H.B. TRIBUNE FRIDAY. JUNE 27, 1930 TREATY-MAKING IN U.S.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 162, 28 June 1930, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE FRIDAY. JUNE 27, 1930 TREATY-MAKING IN U.S.

When we had cabled word that the new Naval Treaty, the outcome of the recent London Conference, had successfully passed through the Naval Committee of the United Senate it was hinted that this did not necessarily mean that it would pass the Senate itself. It was pointed out that there the ratification of such a treaty required the support of a two to one majority of members present, and that there was just the chance of there being enough recalcitrants anxious to assert the authority of the Senate to defeat the motion. It is one of the strange anomalies of the American Constitution that, while the President may declare a war with any nation, he cannot make a peace without such approval as is indicated. This peculiar feature in the political foundation of the United States has recently been made the subject of a special

treatise by an American university professor, who points out that it has no parallel elsewhere in the world and requires modification. He begins by an account of its origins. In the early days of the Republic, when the external relations of the United States were few and simple, it was not unreasonable to regard the Senate, which represented the 13 sovereign States, as well suited to advise, and in a sense control, the President in the making of treaties. Yet from the first the experiment failed, and the custom grew up of leaving the negotiation of treaties to the President and State Department, and presenting then when concluded to the Senate for ratification. The Senators, however, from the first insisted on their right to amend treaties thus presented. Treaties negotiated with the United States have thereforehad to pass through a double process, and it has often happened that after amendment by the Senate they have been rejected by the President or by the other parties to them. The professor devotes several chapters to an examination of the practical effects of this system, and the list of treaties wrecked under it is formidable not so much by reason of the numbers of the treaties lost as of their importance. For him the crowning disaster was the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations. The discussion of the attitude of the Senate towards treaties ol arbitration and the Permanent Court of International Justice are of special interest. It was in America, so the professor claims, that the principle of the peaceful settlement of international disputes was first championed; yet for thirty years after 1897 the Senate refused any appreciable advance in this direction, and of the 160 arbitration treaties signed between 1918 and 1927 the United States was a party to only two. He pours scorn on the timidity displayed in the Senate during the long debates on adherence to the World Court, as though “the poor little United States” were in danger of being swallowed up by the wicked League of European tyrants, gome of the objections of Senators are worth noting. There were fears that the question of the. War debts might be raised before the Court; and the workings i of the American conscience were revealed in a reservation, proposed by Senator Overman, of North Carolina, barring the Court from considering, without the consent of the United States, “the question of the alleged indebtedness or moneyed obligation of any State of the Republic.” This, of course, had in mind the repudiated debts of several individual southern States —North Carolina among them —due to British lenders. The aggregate of this the American professor places at the dollar equivalent of 60 million sterling, but the British bondholders put it at substantially more than this, while, if compound interest is allowed, it is more than trebled. However, he strongly urges that, whatever the amount may be, it should be set off against Britain’s war debt to the United States. But there seems little chance of his suggestion being adopted, though there are many other Americans who endorse his views.