THE PEACE PACT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20448, 30 June 1928, Page 19

THE PEACE PACT.

BRITAIN’S PROPOSED CONFERENCE PLAN. I understand that the British Government has made a new and important proposal to the United States, German, Italian, and Japanese Governments (writes the diplomatic correspondent of the Daily Teleegraph). It is that a conference of jurists representing those Powers and France (who, on her own initiative, has made a simultaneous, though not absolutely identical, proposal ) should he held at an early date to study the legal aspects of the Kellogg and Briand drafts and suggestions for a Multilateral Treaty outlawing war. Such a preliminary conference, it is held, would be useful in clearing up doubtful points of interpretation regarding the American and French drafts themselves. It would also he able to discuss the international commitments of the Powers other than the United States under the League Covenant, the Locarno group of Treaties, and the various military Pacts of the Continent. It may be recalled that a similar procedure was followed with considerable success in the case of Locarno, the meeting of the Foreign Ministers being preceded by consultations in London between the German and Allied legal experts. Berlin, I gather, has already expressed approval of this British, or AngloFrench, proposal, which is still under consideration at Rome, Tokio, and, of course, Washington. The German Government, however, saw no reason to defer on this account its reply to Mr Kellogg on the essential features of the American scheme. Italy, it is gleaned, is about to act likewise, and to transmit to Washington a first, general reply. The latter, indeed, may well prove to be something of a surprise when published. The expectation has been widely entertained in European diplomatic circles that Signor Mussolini would experience some difficulty in reconciling the American scheme for the outlawry of war with some of the tenets held in the matter of foreign policy by the more militant and extreme interpreters of the Fascist doctrine. This, however, is far from being the case, and Rome’s attitude towards Washington's scheme will be found to be exceedingly sympathetic, and not unduly qualified by reservations. It must not be forgotten that the legal advisers of the Piazza Cbigi, Signori Scllalaja and Piletti, are both learned and astute; that Italy interprets the Covenant on British, not French lines; and that except for the two Treaties of Alliance with Albania (which are regarded as forming a kind of Monroe Doctrine), Italy’s agreements with other Powers are not alliances, but pacts of neutrality, arbitration, and conciliation.