NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18317, 6 February 1923, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

FRANCO-CANADIAN TRADE.

Negotiations which were continued between the French and Canadian Governments for six or seven weeks are now on the point of completion, the Paris corepondent of the Morning Post wrote recently, and- a new Franco-Canadian commercial agreement will be signed to 1 replace the Conventions of 1907-9. The French Government, as a result of the war, denounced all existing commercial agreements, with a view to clearing the ground for the conclusion of fresh treaties more suitable to the new international situation. Such fresh treaties have already been concluded with Polanu, Esthonia, Czeoho-Slovakia, Spain, and other countries. The new agreement includes no fewer than six appended lists setting forth thu special conditions under which French products will be admitted to Canada. A large.; number of French products will have the benefit of the intermediary tariff, : which: in many cases will give them a reduction in import duties of 10 or 15 per cent. . In return a largo number of Canadian products are given the benefit of the French minimum tariff. Canadian imports into French West Indian islands, Guiana, and St. Pierre et Miquelon will also benefit' considerably, as will exports of foodstuffs consigned to French Colonies too distant to be conveniently revictuailed from France. The Canadian negotiators haves principally striven to secure for their country's products equally favourable treatment to that accorded to ■ United States goods, and in this, it is understood they have been successful.

THE LEAGUE AND THE STRAITS. ; Reviewing the matters before the Lausanne Conference, the Journal of the League of Nations Union says the issues; that are of vital concern to the League of Nations, inasmuch as the League includes more than three-quarters of the States of the world, are such as make for interactional administration, security of waterways and the protection of minorities. Of these perhaps the most 1 important is the Freedom of the Strain. The principles of the League's Covenant are here called directly into qutßtion. Were a Convention drafted at Lausanne excluding access to ~ the Black Sea ; by ships of war acting on behalf of the League of Nations, the foundation of Articles 10-16 would fall away, and the Covenant would be placed in jeopardy. The League must have access to all seas and waterways to all quarters of the globe if it is to be effective. The keynote to the question, of the Freedom of the Straits in the knse of the foregoing is the Freedom of the Black Sea. Five States directly ink rested in the Black Sea are members of the League of Nations: these are the Danubian States and Bulgaria. Any settlement of the Straits question which would. 'tend to isolate these States, from the main body of the League, 65 which would deprive 4 bese States of the protection' which they are entitled to receive under the > Covenant, would tend to cripple, the League's machinery. Under the terms of settlement it must be possible at all turns for the League of Nations and its machirery to have full access to the Black Sea, for on this freedom of passage depends the ■ effectiveness of the League of Nations and the fulfilment of those guarantees and benefits which the States emerging from the world war hope to realise in the new era.

CONSCRIPTION OF FOREIGNERS. The reference to the League of Nations of tho dispute , between Great Britain and France on the question of the conscription >of British subjects abroad provides a complete reply to those critics who maintain that the League is competent to settle differences between small nations, but that the Great Powers would never submit to its ruling. " In November, 1921, the French Government issued decrees in Tunis and Morocco, one of the effects of which was to impose the obligation of compulsory service \on British subjects resident in French protectorates. Great Britain protested; but France maintained that this was a domestic question, and that, in her 'view,; it was equitable that the Government of the country of domicile should exact military service 'from all • foreigners. France would raise no objection to the conscription of her subjects domiciled in British territory. Neither Government would give way, and the dispute became serious. The British Government then suggested arbitration. France refused As soon as the matter came before the League, most of the tension was relaxed. Almost immediately Lord Balfour and M. Bourgeois, the British and French members of the Council ;of the League, agreed to ask the Permanent Court of International Justice for a ruling whether the question was one of purely domestic concern to France. It was also r agreed that if the Permanent Court decided? that the question - was of international concern, then the substance of this dispute would be settled by arbitration under the auspices of the League of Nations. ,

REPRISALS IN IRELAND. In view of the resort to reprisals in the Irish Free State, interest attaches' to a discussion of (ihe conflict between; the auxiliary police and the Sinn Feitiprs; which appears in the new volumes of the! Encyclopaedia Britaoinica. ' Postulating; that it is not the duty of the historian; to approve or to condemn, but to explain, the writer of the article says that in this case the explanation is not far to seek., " The general attitude of the 'Black-and-'. Tans' is explicable by the abnormal condi- ! tions under which they worked. They found themselves in a country nominally; and even apparently at peace, for its normal life continued through all the troubles, and among a people polite and outwardly even demonstratively friendly, They soon discovered that this was all illusion; that the country was a prey to civil strife in its most cruel and barbarous form; and that the seeming urbanity of the people was too often a treacherous mask. It is not surprising if, not knowing the people as the old R.I.C. men had intimately known them, they were often unable .'■' to distinguish realities from appearances, and confounded the veiled Sinn Feiner with,the real Sinn Feiner, and the ; loyalist with both. As for reprisals, they are best explained by instances. The first serious act of reprisal took -place at Balbriggam, County Dublin, on ! September 21, when District-Inspector Burke, an exceedingly popular officer, and another constable were shot dead in the bar of a public-house. The murderers used expanding bullets, and when the disfigured corpses of the tw,o constables, were carried to the police barracks the men 'saw red,' and that night the houses and shops of the Sinn Fein leaders went up in. flames." But though, in these and other cases, the discipline of the police gave way, the cases were far more numerous in which it stood the awful test. "No reprisals followed the treacherous massacre of the young officers int Dublin on November 21. No reprisals followed the horrible affair of Macroom, County Cork, when (November 29) 17 auxiliary cadets were lured into an ambush of 100 Sinn Feiners disguised as British ' soldiers, and 15 of them murdered, •no quarter being given and the dead savagely mutilated. •" '-~r'. : i