THE KELLOGG PEACE PACT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20501, 31 August 1928, Page 2

THE KELLOGG PEACE PACT.

“ AN OPPORTUNITY RATHER THAN AN ACHIEVEMENT.”

The proceedings at the weekly luncheon of the Rotary Club yesterday had direct reference to the signing of the Kellogg Peace Pact at Paris this week.

Dr A. G. B. Fisher,, professor of economies in Otago University, was present by invitation to address the members on the events that led up to the signing of the pact. Ever since August, 1914, he said, more and more people had been coming to realise that the recurrence of a world war was by far the gravest danger that threatened our civilisation and that, as compared with the problem of preventing such a catastrophe, all the Other problems of statesmanship faded into insignificance. There had beep much thought given to the problem, and much discussion. A little had been done, but though the covenant of the League of Nations was a valuable contribution to the solution of the problem it was clear that people nearly everywhere were still thinking and talking as if war were part of the normal life of a civilised community. Disarmament lagged sadly, and people talked of the next war with the Same sort of pleasurable anticipation as they might discuss the details of the menu of some delightful anniversary dinner. There had been much talk of security and arbitration and sanctions, but many had felt that progress was disappointingly slow. The covenant of the League, while setting up machinery which would make war less likely, still .left a wide gap, within which war was perfectly legal. One group of Americans, a little distrustful of the complexities of European diplomacy, conceived the idea of “ the outlawry of law,” and the Kellogg Pact was in part the result of their work. The idea originated, indeed, with M. Briand, who casually remarked to ail American' journalist in April last year that France would be willing to enter into an engagement with America mutually outlawing war. The idea was taken up in America much more seriously than M. Briand had expected, but whereas his idea was a treaty binding only France and America, Mr Kellogg, with a pleasing simplicity which was sometimes much more effective and much more statesmanlike than all the tortuous wiles of diplomacy proposed a much more general treaty, open to all the great nations that would agree to “ renounce war as an instrument of national policy. ’ This proposal somewhat disconcerted the French, who were at first anxious to confine renunciation to wars of aggression and made counter-proposals designed to protect their rights to go to war in certain circumstances. Mr Kellogg was able to show that most of their objections lacked substance, and eventually the Great Powers agreed to his proposals, although some of them, including Great Britain, displayed excessive caution and showed a disposition to interpret the terms of the treaty in ways that threatened to diminish its usefulness. The acceptance of the Kellogg Pact, Dr Fisher said, undoubtedly marked an important stage in the history of international relations. It was, however, an opportunity rather than an achievement--the first, or perhaps the second stage on the rOad to international harmony, and it rested largely with us, and with people like us, to translate possibilities into facts. It was dangerous to suppose that we could settle these intimate problems merely by gestures or slogans, and we needed further close investigation Of the causes of war, and of the machinery for settling effectively the disputes which were certain to crop up from time to time. The tests of sincerity in tim acceptance of the Kellogg Pact must be sougnt in the progress of disarmament, and ih the growth of willingness to accept in advance the decisions of independent tribunals. In progressing along these lines, it would be necessary to abandon several pleasant hhbits of thought into which we had tended to fall. Wc must give up, for example, the habit of always blaming the other man, who was probably at the same time fortifying himself by blaming us. It was worse than useless going about giving ourselves airs which only made Us ridiculous in the eyes of the rest' of the world. It was absurd to pretend that the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy would not involve a break with the bad traditions of our own past. We must also give up the habit of supposing that people who disagreed with the official policy of their own country were to be condemned as disloyal and wicked. We need rather to cultivate the spirit of Forster, the German pacifist, who, in criticising German policy during the war, declared that “the more sincerely wc love our own people, and the more we wish for it that which alone has worth, the more shall we suffer from all blots on its honour. The Kellogg Pact made the task of ensuing world peace easier than before. It strengthened the hands of those who, in all countries, were working steadily towards this end. But the task remained. No man and no country which aspired to play a worthy part in the comitv of nations could refuse to grapple with it.