ATTAINMENT OF PEACE

Southland Times, Issue 19311, 1 August 1924, Page 5

ATTAINMENT OF PEACE

MUTUAL GUARANTEE PACT ATTITUDE OF THE GERMANS DEVELOPING THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) BERLIN, July 30. The Government has informed the Secretariat of the League of Nations of its disagreement with the Mut.ual Guarantee Pact as ill-fitted to ensure universal security and limitation of armaments. The Government also points out that a totally disarmed Germany would be an impossible position, and submits an alternative suggestion that, instead of piling up treaties of agreement subsidiary to the covenant, the latter itself should be more thoroughly developed.

The German Government urges that a violent settlement of disputes should be prohibited; that an arbitration court for political disputes should be instituted, and especially that disarmament should be compulsory on all states,. adding that Germany then woulld be ready to enter the society of nations, and co-operate in the preservation of peace.

The draft of the mutual guarantee pact provides that in the case of aggression the Council shall decide within four days which State is the aggressor. The Council may apply to the aggressor the economic sanctions of Article 16 of the Covenant, it may inform the States of the forces it desires to have placed at its disposal, it may take the necessary measures for priority of communications connected with the operations, it may prepare a plan of financial co-operation for the provision of funds for the State attacked, and finally it may, with the consent of the attacked State, appoint a Commander-in-Chief.

An interesting clause of the Treaty is that which provides that no party shall be under an obligation to co-operate in a Continent other than the one in which it is situated in the military, naval, and air operations undertaken in connection with the assistance provided by Treaty. The whole cost of the operations undertaken under the terms of the Treaty, including reparation for material damage, shall be borne by the aggressor State up to the extreme limit of its financial capacity, and the amount payable shall be the first charge on the whole assets and revenues of the State. The repayment of the principal and interest of the loans issued by it during the war shall be suspended till reparations are fully discharged. States not members of the League may adhere to the Treaty subject to the (z>nsent of two-thirds of the signatory States. It is laid down that nothing in the Treaty shall affect the rights and obligations resulting from the provisions of the Covenant of the League, or the Treaties of Versailles, Saint Germain, Neuilly, and Trianon, or treaties and agreements registered with the League at the date of the coming into force of the Treaty.