The Dominion WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 1919. PEACE CONFERENCE GOSSIP

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 143, 12 March 1919, Page 6

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 1919. PEACE CONFERENCE GOSSIP

While the world waits for the Peace Conference to .enter urjon a new and vital stage in its deliberations, some particularly futile talk is going' the rounds about obstacles lying in its path. A message from a Daily Express correspondent at Paris, which appears to-day, may be . cited as a typical example of much that has been said in recent days, and might with better wisdom have'been, left unsaid. According to this correspondent both Italy and (Japan, pursuing what they assume to be their own selfish interests, are prepared to wreck the League of Nations project.' Italy, he declares, demands all that the secret treaty of 1915 gave her—that is to say, not only her unredeemed lands, but a commanding position east of the Adriatic, and certain concessions in Asiatic Turkey—while Japan "also has a coup in her determination to bring up the racial ouestion . at the Conference." Japan, it is added, will demand that ths Constitution of the League of Nations shall open, like the American Declaration of Independence, with an assertion _of the equal rights of men, and it is suggested that this "logical" demand will confront President Wilson and Colonel House with a serious dilemma. This sort of speculation is liable to have a mischievous effect. Italy's Adriatic demands and. Japan's demands in regard to China admittedly raise somewhat difficult problems, but to suggest that either nation will attempt to press these demands with entire disregard of tho greater issues before 1 the Peace Conference is to accuse ■ them not only of being brutally sel- | fish but of being deficient in ordinary intelligence. Tho Governments of Italy and Japan have repeatedly declared their whole-hearted adhesion to the principles of international justice the Allies have upheld and are pledged to enforce. Something more' than gossip from the outskirts of the Peace Conference is needed to demonstrate that these declarations have been repudiated. As regards Italy_ and the Adriatic claims, over which she is at issue with the Southern Slavs, there is admittedly a danger that Rot-headed partisans on either side may be foolish enough <to resort to open conflict without waiting for the impartial 'decision of the Peace Conference. Nothing is to be gained, however, by exaggerating tho gravity of.the situation and suggesting that tiie Italian nation thinks only of aggrandisement. Italy's record in the war and the terms in which her public men and newspapers have discussed the difference with the Southern Slavs go far to confute and repel a charge which does her sro little credit. The element of strained exaggeration is even more apparent in tho quoted references to Japan. The suggestion is that Japan will demand as the price of co-operafcion in setting up the League of Nations an acknowledgment of the right of men of all races to migrate freely to any country in which they desire to settle, and that' America and Britain will be unable to logically oppose this demand without admitting that the League of Nations project is chimerical. The suggestion is unsound, and it is' probably doin.tr Japan no more than justice to believe that she. has no .thought of Dressing any such demand. If she did she would Eardly anpeal to the Declaration of Independence as a- precedent, since that document is in essence an assertion of the right of a defined group of human beings to regulate and control their own affairs. _ Unchecked freedom of migration is as far from being a logical corollary to the constitution of a League of Nations as it is from standing in the sanie relation to the Declaration of Independence. It is, in fact, diametrically opposed to the conception of the League. The aim in setting up the League is to maintain and; safeguard international order and justice. To permit unchecked immigration and mixture of races would be to take a long step towards future international complications. Leaders of thought in Japan arc no doubt as well able to recognise as those of other countries that indiscriminate migration offers no solution of problems of racial expansion and progress, but on the contrary would bring terrible evils in > its train to all the nations concerned. In our own case as a Dominion, and few countries are more vitally interested in the question of international migration, a policy of excluding certain races does not imply hostility towards these races, but is based lar.ircly upon economic considerations. Tho policy of excluding Asiatic immigrants from this country and others is not based only. on self-interest. It is also sound in principle, and is nearly as possible just to all concerned since chaotic economic conditions and disastrous strife could in no other way be avoided. At the present of the. world's history the barriers and safeguards of national life are as indispensable as those which protect the family home. The attempt to set up a League of Nations is'in itself an enterprise of defined scope though its successful development would pave the way for an indefinite improvement of human relationships. Tho immediate aim ib , Lo create international machinery which will .prevent,, as far as possible, injustice by one nation to another. AH nations are so obviously interested in forwarding this design that it seems hardly likely that Japan or any other nation of the Allied group will stand in the way of its accomplishment.