PEACE OF EUROPE.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10435, 5 January 1927, Page 5

PEACE OF EUROPE.

PACT FIRST BORN IN 1922 CREDIT GOES TO LLOYD GEORGE. Electric Telegraph—Press Association PARIS, January 3. M. Briand. French Foreign Minister, in an important passage in an interview, published by “Le "Journal,” declared: “It was not on the Locarno basis that the peace of Europe was first established ; it was at Cannes with the Notes that I exchanged with Mr Lip,yd George in 1922.

Germany, Belgian and Italy were to have joined the Anglo-French agreement. No country was to have been admitted subsequent to the Genoa Conference without signing a formal declaration at non-aggression. You know what happened ; 1 do not wish to grumble (M. Briand was defeated). AA’hen I returned to power I resumed work where I left off in 1922.” M. Briand concluded: “If a system of treaties such as Locarno had existed in 1914 would Germany have declared war? Never!” GUARANTEE OF PEACE PARIS. January 3. The Foreign Minister, M. Briand, in a statement to the newspapers, reviewing the events of 1926, says that the principal merit for the Locarno Pact is that it confirmed by an agreement freely entered into, a, Treaty said to, have been obtained bv force. Such a system offers a solid guarantee o.f peace. The Halo-Ger-man Treaty drafted in irreproachable terms, had become & part of the general peace system, whereof the league of Nations was the depository and guarantor. The Flench people did not desire in a,nv way to oppose the Chinese people’s emancipation movement, and France would not f) it erf ere in Chinese internal politics. “I am, sure that, in this polk— ” he says, “we find ourselves in agreement with the signatories of th ■> Washington Agreement.”