The Pact Mystery.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18415, 23 June 1925, Page 8

The Pact Mystery.

It is exasperating that the Dominion still knows very little more about the French Note to Germany than that " it "continues to evoke the strongest "criticism." The Note was published in London as a White Paper last Thursday, so that it is no longer a State secret, but possibly because it was "formulated in a highly judicial "form requiring careful study," the only summary that has been cabled conveys next to no information. It is clear enough, however, that even the British public are very little wiser than we are in New Zealand, the comments of the newspapers, if we except the "Daily Express," indicating almost universal bewilderment. And so far as the "Daily Express" is concerned it may be admitted at once that if it

! has correctly interpreted the Xote it has taken a perfectly sound view of the effect on the Dominions. If the Pact " compels Britain to fight on the " side of France whatever the justice "or the occasion o£ the conflict," the Imperial Government has not only wasted time- discussing it, hut has taken amazing risks. For in addition to refusing to fight for France unconditionally the Dominions would, if the facts could conceivably be as the " Daily Express " presents them, have to ask themselves —and they certainly would ask themselves—if they could any longer support the Homeland unconditionally. But it is not conceivable that the British Government has given any kind of support direct or indirect, any pledge in writing, or any undertaking in the preliminary conversations, that in any and every dispute between France and Germany it will " fight on " the side of France." What may be true is that Britain has agreed to regard Alsace-Lorraine as for ever French—that she has pledged herself to resist any reopening of this ''thousand years' fend," and to that extent, and that only, is on the side of France whatever the occasion of the conflict. But no newspaper of any authority has ever recommended a similar attitude to Germany's eastern frontier, ami France does not expect it. One of the few cable messages on the Pact that has thrown light on the situation contained a summary of a letter and a reply that passed between .Mr Chamberlain and M. Briand during the last week in May and the first in Juno, the meaning of which was, on Britain's side, that the Dominions would not listea to any proposal to light for Poland, and on the side of France, that the Government quite understood that Britain had Dominions, but assumed that Britain left the French nation free to do in the east what seemed necessary to its security. It is because we are quite sure that no British Government would now commit itself to a cause in which it would not have the support of the Dominions that we approve of the promiso made the other day by Mr Coates. It is quite reasonable to give the Imperial Government a blank cheque when it is clear that no improper use will be made of it; and to suppose that there is any doubt on this point is to suppose that the British Government has learnt nothing and forgotten a great deal since the war—and almost - since the American revolution.