EVERY WORD COUNTS

Northern Advocate, 23 May 1928, Page 6

EVERY WORD COUNTS

BRITISH ANTI-WAR NOTE

MUTUAL PLEDGES. . \ VIOLATION SPELLS RELEASE. (Received 9 a.m.) RUGBY, May 21. The “Observer” comments on Sir Austen Chamberlain’s reply to the American suggestion of a multilateral pact} renouncing war as an instrument of national policy. The newspaper states: “The movement initiated by Mr F, B. Kellogg, the United States Secretary of State, had been virtually suspended till the British attitude was disclosed. The British Government and the- British Dominions have now given their full support.

“The practical [purpose of the British answer issued yesterday was to endorse Mr Kellogg’s principle, and to suggest prompt negotiations of the details. The British Government, supported by the British Dominions, has now committed itself fully ‘to proclaim without restriction or qualification that war should not be used as an instrument of policy.’

“The only specific reservation made in the British acceptance agrees witch Article 4 of the French Note, it hat the Kellogg pledge should not ‘conflict with any existing treaty obligation. The Covenant of the League and ithe Locarno Treaty are regarded by his Majesty’s Government as fundamental. Mr Kellogg, on April 28, speaking before the American Society of International Law, expressed the view that the two sets of instruments should 'Strengthen each other. No difficulty,* therefore, arises on that score.

“Both the French and the British Governments made the point that violation of the Kellogg pledge by one party should release the others from their pledge towards the defaulting party. Mr Kellogg had already adopted that view on April 28.

RECURRENCE PREVENTED. “Mr Kellogg has said that signature of the pact by the six Groat Powers would prevent a recurrence of a great war on the 1914 pattern. It seems now reasonably certain that the pact will be signed by those Powers. Mr Kellogg, therefore, is likely to leave, an enviable mark in history.”

The “Sunday Times' 7 says: “In a Note of this kind, dispatched in the name of the British Government, every word counts. Nothing would have been easier for Sir Austen than to have emitted a loud cheer of unthinking approval in support of the American proposals, but that is net the way we in Britain like to have our Foreign Secretaries behave. If we put our name to a treaty it is wjth the intention of carrying it out. If we made a promise we mean to redeem it. If we commit ourselves to a principle it is not. until we have done our best to forecast what it may portend in the way of action.

“Sir Austen Chamberlain has paid Mr Kellogg’s approaches the supreme compliment of taking them to be serious and practical and deserving of detailed examination. When, therefore the Foreign Secretary, on behalf of the British nation, declares that 'His Majesty’s Government will support the movement to the utmost of its power' his words may be accepted as indicative, not of an opinion or hope, but of policy. Again, when he talks of the British Government’s ‘hearty co-operaton in the conclusion of such a pact as is proposed’ he means neither more nor less than he says.

NOTHING ANTAGONISTIC. “Such declarations, coming at the end of politely-moved amendments to the original text of the draft treaty, carry a far greater weight of conviction and significance for those who know our people than if he had merely endorsed Mr Kellogg’s general principle without waiting to inquire or reflect how it might work but in practice. Happily, in this case the Foreign Office, after a realistic examination of Mr Kellogg’s scheme, and of the French criticisms upon it, finds nothing vitally antagonistic between them, and nothing to which Great Britain cannot willingly subscribe. All Sir Austen’s suggestions are, in fact, directed towards giving greater definiteness, and therefore greater strength ami practicality to the American Secretary of State’s original idea. They amount to little more than a request that Air Kellogg’s verbal interpretations should be incorporated in the treaty itself. “The Foreign Secretary, for instance, is anxious (and rightly so) that there should be no appearance and no possibility of a clash between our obligations under the Covenant of the League of Nations and under the Locarno agreement, and the declarations to which we commit outsolves by signing the new pact. Similarly, in regard to those regions of the world, the welfare and integrity of which constitute a special and vital interest for onr peace and safety, so long ns ft is recognised and explicitly stated that the projected treaty Would regard the protection of those regions against attack as a measure of self-defence on Great

Britain’s part, just as America’s active guardianship of the Monroe Doctrine would be regarded as a, measure of self-defence on her part, then acceptance of the pact is feasible.”