Evening Post. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1929. CHRISTMAS PEACE HOPES

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 152, 24 December 1929, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1929. CHRISTMAS PEACE HOPES

Thougli the Pact for the RenunciaLion of War was signed in 1928, the dawn of Christmas four months later found a world yet uncertain of peace. There was no active warfare, except, perhaps, in China, where one can never be certain that hostilities have I ceased; but the message of the angel host: "On earth peace, good-will toward men," remained a hope for the future. And, the Peace Pact notwithstanding, the fulfilment of that hope appeared tfttle"hearer. In the American Senate there was a race for precedence between the Pact Ratification and the Navy Bill. The irony of this passed unnoticed in the battling Senate, and it was with no thought of the peaceful season that the fight was postponed till after the Christmas holidays. When it was resumed later America certainly disappointed the cynical prophets who had half-expected her to refuse to ratify her own pact of idealism. But she compromised with her ideals by authorising at the same time a navalbuilding programme more fitting for a nation which had made no claim to renounce war. The Senate was persuaded to share Mr. Kellogg's faith in the Pact by a substantial programme of works—works which were not evidence of faith, but a contradiction of it.

These were the conditions at Christ mas tide a year ago. They afforded little hope for rapid progress in pacification, yet on the eve of another Christmas we may claim that progress has beeh made. A Quaker President entered White House in April, and his first official gesture was to send to Geneva an American representative who submitted new proposals for naval disarmament. The proposals were warmly welcomed by the British Government, then facing a General Election, and that warmth was not diminished when Mr. MacDonald took Mr. Baldwin's place in Downing Street. The work begun by Mr. Gibson and Lord Cushendun was continued by General Dawes and Mr. Mac Donald. On his reception in England General Dawes quoted Edmund Burkes statement that politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings, but to human nature, of which reason'was by no means the greatest part. His method of approach to the naval armament issue suggested strongly his desire to follow the exordium of Burkes conciliation speech jn laying first a foundation of agreement on peace and building thereon an enduring structure. Not peace through tho medium of war (said Burke); not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discard, fomented from principle in all parts of tho Empire; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions or the precise marking of tho shadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace, sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in tho spirit of peace; and laid in principles purely pacific. In such a spirit it was agreed between the representatives of two great nations that they would approach the problem of naval strength. They would contemplate a future of peace and adjust their armaments on that basis. The negotiations thus commenced proceeded smoothly. The Kellogg Pact was accepted as the founda-tion-stone upon which the edifice should be built, not as the keystone of a completed work. "The Pact of Paris is one upon which we have to build the future of enduring peace," said Mr. Henderson on the Pact anniversary, and President Hoover's view (expressed in his Memorial Day address) was similar. "The time has come when we must know whether the Pact we have signed is real, or whether we are condemned to further and more extensive programmes of naval construction." But, sober and practical as these views were, the parties did not lose their hold of the ideal. The Kellogg Pact was not, they agreed, a complete structure; but they steadily affirmed that it was a foundation. "We will start from the Kellogg Pact and build up," they said. That task has indeed been faithfully undertaken, and the work done is the basis of our hope this Christmas. We do not know the exact lines of the understanding reached by General Dawes and Mr. Mac Donald, and supplemented later when the American President and the British Prime Minister met in the mountains; but we know that the accord attained warranted the issue of invitations for a Five-Power Naval Conference, that those invitations were accepted, and that, though difficulties have still to be met, a great and general advance in. naval disarmament is confidently hoped for. Should these hopes be fully realised', t.he Anglo-American negotiations of 1929 will have set the seal upon the Kellogg Pact. The negotiations, already rank higher as an achievement m pacification than the American entry to the World, Court (yet to be ratified) or British acceptance of the Optional Clause, which aprpears more striking as a gesture than of value in practice. And this achievement is based upon a Treaty which merely expresses an ideal and binds the nations to that ideal with bonds no stronger than they choose to lay upon themselves. Nations have in the t>ast sought peace by devious

and tortuous paths, and failed to find it. The ray of hope which now lights a new search is a pact without material power. "The difference lies (stated an American writer recently, referring to the new peace atmosphere) in the sanctionless Kellogg Pact; an 'ineffectual' collocation of words may prove to be the one effective instrument for peace in the long armament controversy." That Pact began by proclaiming peace. The Christian era also began with a proclamation. Yet not at once was that proclamation realised; nor did its fulfilment come in the way that the first followers of the Messiah had hoped. The material kingdom of Israel was not restored; but a spiritual power was given which (though some may say Christianity has failed) has effected more than any material empire. The inspiration of the Kellogg Pact, we may hope, may similarly be found more powerfully effective than the treaties of peace which have been based on force and backed by arms.