NATIONS OUTLAW WARS

Taranaki Daily News, 26 July 1929, Page 9

NATIONS OUTLAW WARS

IMPRESSIVE CEREMONY KELLOGG PACT PROCLAIMED ‘MOST SACRED OBLIGATION’ By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Australian Press Association. Washington, July 24, President Hoover formally proclaimed the Kellogg Treaty at an impressive ceremony attended by Messrs Calvin Coolidge and Frank B. Kellogg and the representatives of the 15 signatory Powers, 31 adhering nations and other diplomats and statesmen. President Hoover recounted the history of the treaty and paid a tribute to 31. Briand and Messrs Coolidge and Kellogg. ' “May I ask you,” lie said, “who represent the Governments which accepted this treaty that is now part of their supreme law and their most sacred obligations, to convey to them the high appreciation of the Government of the United States that, through their cordial collaboration, an act so auspicious for the future happiness of mankind has now been consummated.”

“I dare predict that the influence of the treaty for the renunciation of war will be felt in a large proportion in all future international acts. The magnificent opportunity and compelling duty now open to us should spur us on to the seizure of every opportunity calculated to implement this treaty, and to extend the policy which it so nobly sets forth.”

After President Hoover’s address, representatives of the treaty Powers were joined by the chiefs of all the remaining diplomatic missions at Washington at a luncheon at the White House,

The acceptance of the Kellogg Treaty by Japan, the. last Power to sign, was received at the State Department previous to the President’s proclamation. Signalising the American formal inauguration of the pact, President Hindenburg has sent a message to President Hoover, hoping that the pact will develop good international relations and preserve peace on the basis of justice.

HOW THE PACT CAME INTO BEING. RIGHT TO WAR JN SELF-DEFENCE. In April, 1928, Mr. F. B. Kellogg, the United States Secretary of State, issued to fourteen nations (Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Irish Free State, India, France, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Czecho-Slo-vakia) an invitation to sign a treaty outlawing war after he had, in January, 1928, sounded the French Government as to its attitude.

In the replies made to this invitation certain nations introduced reservations. The British Government, for example, on May 19, in its answer to Mr. Kellogg, pointed out that Great Britain was under two obligations. The first was incurred when the Covenant of the League of Nations was signed. The second was incurred in the Locarno Pact. Before accepting Mr. Kellogg’s proposals the British Government had to ascertain that there was no contradiction between the liabilities accepted in the two earlier treaties and the obligations that would be incurred under Mr. Kellogg’s project. Further the British Government had to reserve the right of protection against attack on the British Empire, which was a purely British question, just as the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine (which debars any foreign Power from intervening in America or making annexations in America) was a matter definitely reserved for the United States. The approval of the Dominions was also necessary before Mr. Kellogg’s scheme could be accepted. In a dispatch which was received in London on June 23, Mr. Kellogg gave a full explanation of the scope and meaning of the proposed treaty. His explanation and some slight modifications in the preamble satisfied British criticism. . . All the 14 countries invited to sign replied favourably, and on August 27, 1923, the formal signature of the tieaty took place at Paris. Since then all the nations have ratified the pact. In his explanatory note of June, IJ-s, Mr. Kellogg stated there was nothing in the treatv which impaired in any wav the right of self-defence. Evcry nation “is free at all times and regardless of treaty provisions to defend its territories from attack or invasion, and it alone is competent to decide whether circumstances require recourse to war in self-defence. If it has a -rood case the world will applaud am not condemn its attitude.”

THE PACT. The pact consists of three articles, '^Article 1: The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples, that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies,, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one an•Xrtielc 2: The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of nil disputes or conflicts, of whatever nature or of whatever on 0 n thev may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific moans. „ Article 3: The present treaty shall be ratified by the High Contracting Parties named" in the preamble in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements, and shall tak effect as between them as soon as a their instruments of ratification sha have been deposited.

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