The Wanganui Herald (Published Daily.) WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1919. AMERICA AND THE PEACE TREATY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15976, 19 November 1919, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald (Published Daily.) WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1919. AMERICA AND THE PEACE TREATY.

Cables to-day report that a ,grave situation has arisen because of the American Senate adopting reservations practically nullifying the Treaty of Peace. The position is viewed in London and Paris with much concern, especially as President Wilson’s illness increases the difficulty of forecasting any solution. Lord Robert Cecil says it would be difficult to exaggerate the gravity of the situation; and whatever happens, tire League must continue, even though the United States decided not to participate. If America stands cut, she renounces the professions with which she entered the war. A League without America is quite possible, but could not be completely effective. The boycott, its first weapon, would lost half its value without the adherence of a great exporting country, and the second naval power in the world would not be available ho enforce its decrees. It is natural, of course, that the Senators of the United States hesitate to commit their country to new external responsibilities such as the Treaty demands, and it would bo better for them to reject it than to accept it, and, having accepted it, to treat it as the ideal of amiable theorists; If the terms of the Treaty are accepted by the United States it moans that the League of Nations must be regarded as a satisfaction of the hope which became stronger and stronger in the Allied countries as the war went on, the hope (hat this war would be the last, and the sacrifices of this generation would be the redemption. It means in the second place that the League, if it is to succeed, must become a part of the machinery of government of all civilised peoples, and that the members of its councils must not be officials, but popular representatives. Very recent history may be quoted to show what the alternatives to those propositions must be. In all countries there are large and influemtial sections of society quick to forget the meaning of war and ready to look upon a repetition of its horrors as an inevitable product of human nature. In many European countries organisations have been formed with the object of destroying national Governments and setting up an international proletariat in their place. The League will overcome these opponents if it is founded on popular approval. The alternative to a League is a Balkanised Europe, in which the supreme power must quickly pass to the nation which retains its military spirit longest. Obviously tie most effective means of minimising the power of any individual State to again terrorise the world is to be found in a union of nations which are determined that peace shall be preserved. Such a union is to be found in a League of Nations such as the Treaty provides, open to all those who have proved themselves willing to conform to its rules. The world will breathe with greater freedom if the United States subscribes to the Treaty.