THE U.S. AND THE TREATY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16033, 26 January 1920, Page 3

THE U.S. AND THE TREATY.

COMPROMISE PROPOSAL, Australian sad N.Z. Cable Association, NEW YORK, January 25. The New York Times’ Washington correspondent states that an unforeseen turn in affairs took place when several irreconsileables—Republican Senators—visited Senator Lodge. They pointed out to him that they represented a large number of Senators who would vote for utter rejection of the Treaty rather than accept any material changes in Senator Lodge’s reservations, This, it is felt, may negative any compromise. Senator Sherman, who is one of the irreconcileables, has stated that he will leave the Republican party if there is to be any compromise on Senator Lodge’s reservations.

THE PRESIDENT’S STUBBORNNESS. Latest London newspaper files to hand show that even five or six weeks ago it was pretty generally accepted that the League Covenant would not get through the American Senate except in a practically eviscerated form. Writing then from Washington, the London Times’ correspondent indicated this, and also that it was generally felt by supporters of the League in America that the President, if not solely, was assuredly in the main responsible for the deadlock that had arisen. He says that latterly the President had stood almost alone in his opposition to everything in the way of “reservations,” and that at the time of writing he stood absolutely alone in that he was the only public man who had not indicated his conviction that the Treaty could be saved from rejection only by the admission of qualifications to its present purport. The opinion is confidently expressed that had he six months ago shown any disposition towards compromise he could have got the Treaty through the Senate with only comparatively innocuous reservations. His stubborn refusal—perhaps quite justifiable to himself as being largely the author of the Covenant—to listen to any suggestion of alteration aggravated the already pretty intense personal hostility which had been excited in the minds of the Republican leaders by his virtual ignoring of them in connection with his mission to Versailles. The consequence is that there can now be very little chance of any acceptable understanding being reached in the Senate as at present constituted. _ Mr Lodge, the Republican leader in the Senate, has expressed himself very decidedly on the matter, and declared that the only way that finality can be reached is through the coming senatorial election. Should it be that this course will have to be pursued, the correspondent quoted says, there can be little doubt but that, as things stand, the Republicans would win out on the issue of the Treaty as it came from Versailles and the Treaty as Mr Lodge would have it amended. There is, it is stated, a very strong popular feeling that it is necessary to have some reservation calculated to safeguard the American rights which the President’s opponents nave declared to be endangered by the Treaty as originally drawn. There is, indeed, a very general inclination to withstand any proposal that would make more intimate America’s connection with Europe in any sphere but that of trade. _On the other hand, however, there is a process of education going on through the better-class press, and it is not altogether a hopeless thought that, given a little time, the. American people will be won over to a more cordial regard for the League of Nations and its purposes. Many of these papers at the same time are condemnatory of the attitude adopted by Mr Wilson, and do not hesitate to say that from first to last he has mishandled the whole question. They point to his obstinate refusal, both before his departure for Paris and while there, to recognise the facts of the American political situation, and then, after the signing of the Treaty, his practical flouting of the Republican majority in the Senate, and finally his continual failure to appreciate the absolute need for invoking a spirit of conciliation. The correspondent winds up by saying: “The President’s position at Washington today is, nudeed, an almost incredible contrast to his position before the world a year ago. Will he now try to save something from the wreck oi his ambitions, or will he risk the final obliteration of the policies he stood for at Paris in next year’s Presidential contest, after, in all probability, a canvass calculated to react none too auspiciously upon the popular conception of the relations of the United States with those nations whom he hoped would be his chief coadjutors in the establishment of a new era?” So far the cables have given no very hopeful indications of a settlement of the differences that have arisen between the President and his political apponents.