PACIFIC PEACE PACT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 118, 4 June 1937, Page 6

PACIFIC PEACE PACT

A ^Dismal Cataiogue" of Difficulties tReceived 4, 8.45 a.m.)LONDON, June 3. The Manchester Guardian, "jn g, leader dealing with the proposed pact of nonaggression by nations in the Pacific', says it js desirable but that the question rather is whether it is praeticable. "The most obvious difficulty," the leader adds, "is Mauchukuo. There is not the slightest chance of Japan signing a regional pact which does not recognise Manchukuo." Several outstanding disputes remained between Japan and Russia, while the naval question between the United States of America, Japan and Britain would not become easier. Australia, which had the most to gain and much to fear, might be asSed for some concession on migration. It is a dismal cataiogue. The only hopeful point was that a strong body of opinion in all the countries concerned welcomed the suggested pact. A note of warning is being sounded in connection with Mr Lyons' Pacific proposal. Feeling in well-informed quarters bere is that the long path towards reconciiing conflicting ideas and ideals must be traversed before apything tangible appears on the horizon. The Morning Post expressed the widely-lield view in London when - it says : "Universal guarantee of nonaggression already exists in the Kellogg Pact. A new pact would not give the signatories any greater security, unless a real desire for peace dxisted among them. If such a desire existed, a pact would scarcely be necessary." The Morning Post emphasised the .particiilarly complex relations in the Pacific, which is dominated by Japan. "It seems extremely unlikely that a new conference will solve a problem which so far has evaded all the efforts of diplomacy* There is certainly a better atmospbere in the Far East, which nothing is more calculated to spoil than a gathering of nations, all mutually suspicious and 'each with its interests to canvass "