EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 20 March 1924, Page 2

EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

AN A-MAH I CAN I’IIEDICTJ ON. AtI&UtALIAN AND N.Z. CAM, 13 ASSOCIATION NEW YORK, March 19. The “Times” Washington correspondent says President Coolidge has informed the correspondents that au American settlement, acceptable to Franco, and other countries involved, is very near. It is oil tile basis ol' considerations which are being prepared by t..« commission which is examining the queston of the reputations.- Mr Hughes lias received daily advices of the progress of tiro negotiations and lie, too holds the opinion that there will shortly he a lull agreement on all the vital points. President Coolidge indicates that ho would not wish to raise ialso hopes, because the situation is such that it would be dangerous to draw definite conclusions, but the best information ioudicates that the long-standing European dispute will be adjusted, with a resulting stabilisation of conditions aml prosperity.

Ambassador Howard, in making his first public a (Id less here at the Pilgrims Society Dinner, said the l nited States was destined to work for the permanent peace of Europe, and not to permit Europe to stew in its own juice. Sir E. Howard, referring to the charges ot America’s so-called splendid isolation, said America under President Harding was not splendidly isolated, hut rather splendidly helpful in many ways, and now, under president Coolidge, she was doing her best, through the instrumentality of her experts on the Reparations Commission to straighten, out that tangled skein. “I cannot hut believe,” he said, “that America will feel an impulse to co-operate in the permanent peace of Europe, on which, to put it on no higher grounds, so much of her own prosperity depends.”

Sir E. jUowalrd, advertising Uhcj growth of the idea of settling disputes judicially, said it was iueun'eeivabie that Britain and the United States should ever wish to adopt any other method. “1 wish to God we could say the same of the rest of the world,” he declared. Sir E. Howard, concluding, said:—“l appeal to the citizens »r tile United States to do all in their power to help to create a will to peace, for with each determination against war its possibility becomes more ami more remote.”

M. Jusseraiid (French Minister) lollowed saying: “My ideal, in the course of a long career, has been that of trust uiul friendship among tin; three foremost liberal nations in the world, namely France, England and America. 1

have never favoured an exclusive union between two, hut always three. I persist in my belief in considering a three-legged seat is safer than a twolegged one.” Mr Jussornnd denied that the French air forces were aimed against Britain. “We do not lcar ail absolutely predominant British fleet,” he said. “We trust it is a friend's fleet. There is no more reason for Britain to fear French airplanes than for France to fear the British Navy.”