EUROPEAN SITUATION

Kaikoura Star, Volume LVI, Issue 90, 16 November 1936, Page 4

EUROPEAN SITUATION

A FIVE-POWER TREATY? Tn presenting the toast of the Diplomatic Corps at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in the Guildhall recently, the Foreign Minister, Mr Anthony Edon, made special reference to the visit of Colonel Beck, Foreign Minister for Poland, who was one of the guests at the dinner. Mr Eden said it had been his privilege to wonk with Colonel Beck for ’several years. In the difficult tasks they had had to do they had not always agreed on every point, yet he would like to say that he and his colleagues appreciated the work the visitor had done and the service he had rendered both to his country and to i the cause of European peace. The Primo Minister, Mr Stanley Baldwin, reviewing tho situation during the past five years, said it had been shown that the position of London was based on something deeper than the gold standard. Recent events had shown that the factor of stability could bo used in tho system of co-operation. The constant aim of the Government in its financial and economic policies had been to revive confidence. Much progress had been made in reviving internal trade in the country. The Government’s efforts had succeeded in lifting international trade to a higher level than before the depression. Complete recovery could only be found in

measures for resuscitation of international trade generally, but the Government must be guided by the course of events. Ho rejoiced at the conclusion of tho clearing agreement and commercial agreement in Rome. He trusted that the agreements would place trade between the two countries on a sound basis. Hope of Five-Power Treaty Referring to the relations of Britain and Italy in the Mediterranean, he said they were not divergent but complementary. Speaking of the forthcoming FivePower conference, Mr Baldwin said he hoped that tho new treaty which it was hoped would result from that conference would bo a firm step towards a general European settlement. Relations with the United States were next mentioned, and Mr Baldwin said that the British Government was looking forward to a further period of friendly co-operation with the GovernI went of Mr Roosevelt on matters of mutual concern. Tn reference to the treaty of alliance and friendship with Egypt, he said it must bo regarded as a happy augury. “We welcome Egypt as our new ally,” he said. Touching on the situation in Spain, he said that the Government had left no stone unturned in endeavourig to safeguard to the best of its ability the lives of British subjects in Spain and by the policy of non-intervention had tried to prevent the spread of the conflict beyond tho borders of that country. Referring to Poland, he said he looked for close collaboration between tho two countries, each of which had shown that it had the interests of world peace at heart. The Dardanelles agreement, he added, formed a happy precedent for the settlement of differences by negotiation. The meeting of the Imperial Conference next year at the time of the Coronation would afford further proof of the value of free discussion of pressing problems. In an impressive passage Mr Baldwin deplored the necessity for rearmament. “To-day,” he said, “while we are still finding and burying the bodies of men who fell in the Great War, the whole of Europe is arming. What good can come of it? In so far as we devote time to making arms, to that extent wo delay the time we can further improve the conditions and standard of life of the people.”