The Star. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1925. THE LOCARNO PACT IS RATIFIED BY AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17699, 20 November 1925, Page 6

The Star. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1925. THE LOCARNO PACT IS RATIFIED BY AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY.

Ratification of the Locarno Treaty bv the British House of Commons was, as everyone expected, carried by an overwhelming majority. The critics hardly went further than an attack on the Government for carrying out negotiations without securing consultation and the consent of the Dominions. “As regards the Dominions and India,” said Mr Ramsay MacDonald, “ I am unable to conceive a more calamitous system of conducting the Imperial foreign policy than the method enshrined by the Locarno Pact.” Mr Lloyd George spoke in similar strain. The failure to consult the Dominions, he said, was a serious error which might have grave consequences. Answering this, Mr Chamberlain could only explain that Britain had been faced with a situation that would not brook delay, and that it was not possible to treat matters so important and covering so wide a field by despatch or cable. The next steps will be watched with the keenest intetest. The self-governing Dominions have still to discuss and ratify the Locarno Pact, and the possibilities are various, particularly when it is remembered that Canada and South Africa refused to ratify the Treaty of Lausanne, which effected a settlement with Turkey. At Locarno, the representatives of Great Britain agreed, in the interests of the peace of Europe, to guarantee the. frontiers of Germany, Belgium and France, and the Council of the League of Nations will judge when circumstances necessitate action by the Powers concerned. Those provisions, diplomats justifiably claim, are the essence of what is the true solvent for Europe’s gravest misunderstandings. The important point for New Zealand, however, is the fact that for the first time the Dominions are to have the right to say whether they will or will not be linked with a European regional pact. It has been explicitly agreed that so far as Britain’s co-operation is concerned the Dominions are not to be joined as parties unless they so desire. That aspect, as Mr Coates has sa\d, will he fully discussed when Parliament meets. In the meantime, it is surely not too much to hope that the statesmen of the Empire will press forward to “ find machinery by which the foreign policy will become ire every act and in every hour the foreign policy of the Empire, not the foreign policy of Britain.” The negotiations at Locarno have slioVvn how vitally necessary that machinery is.

Once again the Chathams steamer is causing anxiety owing to the uncertainty of her position between the islands and the mainland. The vessel left the Chathams on Friday, and should have reached Wellington on Sunday, or Monday at the latest, but she has not been seen since, and her nonarrival in Wellington is disturbing the Chathams people. The vessel may be sheltering round thc*islands from the continuous westerly and sou'-westerlv gales that have been blowing, but she may be adrift in mid-ocean or at the bottom of the sea for ail the Marine Department seems to care. The Awarua, like the Tees, the Calm, the ill-fated Ripple and other vessels in the island service, has no wireless. She was at sea in last Saturday night's gale, one of the fiercest in the memory of seafaring men, and if she has not broken down she is likely enough footing it slowly to Wellington. But the tragedy of it all is that ever since the Ripple went down with all hands, the Marine Department has been promising to see that wireless is installed on these, vessels, but has failed to make good its most- solemn promises. The Ripple was lost on August 7, 1924. Just a week or two before that the s.s. Tecs, on the way to the Chathams, was struck in mid-ocean by a tidal wave, which completely disabled her for two days, during which the weather was calm. She limped into the Chathams, and finally made her way back to Lyttelton. At that time Parliament was so impressed with the lesson of the Tees and the Ripple that it was prepared to pass an Act forthwith to compel these vessels to carry wireless. But the late Mr Massey and the Minister of Marine gave emphatic assurances that steps would be taken by regulation to enforce existing legislation, and Parliament was appeased. Since then, although the Act of 1909 confers the fullest possible powers on the Government, the Minister of Marine has been temporising, and the Act, passed by the Liberals, remains a dead letter under Reform administration.