THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, JULY 20, 1936 BACK TO LOCARNO?

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22475, 20 July 1936, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, JULY 20, 1936 BACK TO LOCARNO?

■ Whether anything can be hopefully ' ; done io avert the splitting of Europe ; into hostile groups of Powers has j become dependent, to a large extent, j upon what can be recovered of the Locarno Treaty. Three of the five j Powers that concluded in 1925 this ; main undertaking of the several Locarno agreements are making a I resolute effort to salvage it. Britain. ! having been chiefly instrumental in i promoting and steering the original; ! negotiations, is active in the endea- j vour. France and Belgium are : | sympathetically co-operating. It is : doubtful whether the other two, j ■ Italy and Germany, will assist in j I any effective way. The new position i created by the accord of these two ! i in the recent Austro-German agree- j ment ks" throve a serious obstruc- i j tion. It has instituted so consider- : { able an understanding between Italy \ and Germany on a vital matter ot j policy—the fact that it territorially j straddles Central Europe from the j Mediterranean to the Baltic is not j unimportant—that it virtually creates ; a new three-Power bloc on the j Continent- This is precisely the sort j of development that the present; effort to revive the spirit and body { of the Locarno Treaty is trying to j i obviate. That treaty cannot reason-; , ' ably be described as a similar j , achievement. It was vitally related j ' to the other agreements reached at j : that juncture, and was therefore j ' contributory to a wide scheme to | keep the peace in Europe; it was. j moreover, executed in intimate . association with the League, being j the means of ending, a: the time, j German reluctance to honour the j military clauses of the peace treaty and to join the League. The tri-1 partite agreement now centred on j Austria has no such breadth of out- J , look and intention. It may not as j yet amount ;o a military alliance, j but its composition —Germany outside the League. Italy with no enthusiasm for the League, and Austria j more eager to placate both Germany j

' and Italy than to fulfil League obligations—suggests that at any moment a military alliance may emerge from its harmony of national policies, The prospect for a resuscita- . tion of the Locarno Treaty is noi : favourable. It ■will apparently be attempted bj Britain, France and Belgium it " collaboration, and it should be, ever : if the chances of success are meagre. It is the only alternative, as the League will probably find itself faced in September by a problem beyond its ability to solve satisfactorily, tc - '"the division of Europe into blocs and counter-blocs such as preceded events 22 years ago." To prevent Europe's relapse into that inflammable condition is the aim of British statesmanship. The merits of this purpose entitle it to the good wishes of every lover of peace. In the conversations that have taken place in London in the last day or there . has been emphasised, it appears, the } need and desirability of a general i understanding among the chief Euro- , pean Powers. An effort to achieve this ought to be taken as axiomatic, but axioms of this sort are at present at a discount. Take the London proposals of March 19. to which t reference is made in to-day's news. Britain, France and Belgium united lin urging them. To regard the i Locarno Treaty as intact: to ask the General Staffs of the five signatories to arrange in concert the technical i conditions in which the guarantees !of mutual assistance should be applied : to request Germany to submit the Ehineland problem to the Hague Court of Permanent Justice: to provide for the maintenance of order and security on the frontier while the dispute was before that

court; and, should Germany agree, to proceed with a comprehensive programme of international amity and co-operation—these were the suggestions. They were eminently reasonable. But German determination to resume military occupation of the Rhineland and generally to take a lone road dashed aii hopes of success. The British Government, notwithstanding the failure, renewed to France and Belgium its p'edres under the Locarno Treaty, but the larger plan collapsed. That is rightly still the attitude of the British Government. Nothing in the Locarno Treaty entitles anv signatory to destroy it by unilateral action- Provision is made in it for the international settlement of anv

questions on which the parties may find themselves in conflict. This provision Germany ignored—refused, indeed, to be bound by it. The reason aneged— at a special meeting or the League Council summoned in pursuance of the treaty —was that tne pact, through the unilateral action ot trance in concluding an agreement with Russia, had been destroyed in both its letter and its historical meaning. Herr von Ribbent rop. the German Ambassador to London, in making this statement on behaif of the German Government. declared the Franco-Russian j agreement to be a military alliance I justifying Germany s recourse to I secure its own territory (in the j hnmeisnd; without further delav. j By resolution the Council rejected : the German statement as invalid. f and declared the sending of armed * forces into the Rhineland to be an I. infringement of national undertak-; ngs. Neither the League nor Ger- j sany has since changed its attitude. ' it ss not n_kciy to3t tne imnsssc I >e easily overcome. Nevertheless, he three Powers loyal to the -ocamo Treaty cannot rerv well ; mbar£ on s new enterprise for ■ :eace without endeavouring to preerve this useful basu. I i