The New Zealand Times. MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1925. THE NEW SECURITY

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12094, 23 March 1925, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1925. THE NEW SECURITY

“The King is dead. Long live the King!” The Geneva Protocol has come into the ancient category of kingship. The individual Protocol is dead, but the prinoiple of peace perpetual lives on. To this great fact the League of Nations has testified on the death of the Protocol, promptly. We oan safely establish a subsidiary formula: "Long live the League qf Nations.” This determination of the League is the strongest support for the continuance of the League. The League was established for the express purpose of making and keeping peace in the world, with goodwill among men. It has justified itself already, in its first lustre, by avoiding WarTike trouble, as it arose, section by section. Its last effort for the principle of existence was its first attempt to get for that principle general acceptance, not from any section, hut from the whole world. This at all events was, on the general scale, powerful enough to impress the most recalcitrant minority. Well meant as it was, the attempt failed. The Teasons were obvious, realising for the world the extreme difficulty of the life task of the League. But the failure finds the League fully determined to prooeed staunchly with its special duty. In proof we have, not a generality of aspirations, but a new concrete attempt to establish a working basis for the world’s peace. This is the new Pact drawn up and brought forward for the League by Dr. Benes, and discussed by him with the French Prime Minister. Dr. Benes is the Czecho-Slovakian statesman who fathered the Protocol which owed its final death-stroke to a British statesman, Austen Chamberlain. Dr. Benes has lost no time in formulating a new peace basis and appealing to another etatesman, M. Herriot, for his support before the League. The (title of the new Pact measures the width of its intended influence. “The Pnited States of. Europe” sounds very ambitious. It is ambitious enough to deserve success.

Under this plan Europe is divided into two groups. Of these the western is formed by all the western States, including Germany, and the eastern takes in all the eastern States except Russia —a State at present almost past praying for —leaving Italy to join which group may be selected by the Italian people; Spain to be invited later to join the western gioup. The signatories are to guarantee the frontiers and accept compulsory arbitration. Dr. Benes does not enlighten us as to the modus operandi, beyond his statement of the position of the British dominions, whose hostility was one prime cause of the failure of the Protocol. Ip that he declares that the dominions are not likely to make any objection to the “U.S. of Europe,” because that is “a regional understanding which does not require placing military forces at the disposal of another country.” With this introduction he hopes that the U.S.E. proposal will be accepted in place of the defunct Protocol by the League of Nations at its September sitting of this year. The satisfactory point in this is that the failure of the first general peace proposal has been followed by the appearance of a second, completely formulated in shape, and in time for all concerned 1 to fully discuss the same before it is presented to the League’s next meeting. In five months from now the League meets. In five months every State concerned can discuss it, thresh it out, present difficulties for examination, make suggestions, and givo the public opinion of its people ample instruction, by propaganda. of any kind it pleases, for making up its mind on the subject. The dead Protocol inaugurated this wise method of appeal, and the new Pact (of U.S.E.) is carrying it on. The League of Nations is doing its princi-

pal duty by the peace of Europe with method as well as determination. It will probably be said that to divide Europe into two groups is to repeat the error of the two great Triple Alliances which, though intended to preserve peace, hurled Europe into the greatest war of history. Disarmament all round would take the sting out of that obvious and, as no one can deny, correct objection. The Protocol was dependent on a general disarmament agreement; for diearmnment, by preventing the maintenance of huge forces, reduces to police dimensions the force necessarily behind the verdicts of compulsory arbitration. We presume that the new Pact will rely on the same safeguard. It must, of course, have a safeguard, and whatever safeguard is intended will, we presume, have general notification. Until such is made it is impossible to arrive at a just estimate of the merits of the new Pact. Evidently the safeguard intended is such as not to place the troops of any State at the disposition of any other State. This the author of the new Pact intimated as the reason of his belief that the new Pact would not incur the opposition of the dominions. In passing, we welcome this second sign of the respect in which the British dominions, with their great destinies, are held by the European concert. For the present we can only look forward hopefully to the safeguard by which the new Pact is to keep its group co-operation a strong machine for peace, proof against the influences which turned the former ostensible peace machine into a formidable power of war. Before September this and all other points for consideration should be cleared up. For the moment, the great point is, as we have said, that the League of Nations, so far from being discouraged by the failure qf its first attempt to justify its existence, is making a second and showing that it has profited hy the lesson of the first.