The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1925. TO-DAYS TREATY.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 December 1925, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1925. TO-DAYS TREATY.

In London to-day in ;i gathering .shorn of j tn- sheen and splendour due to the mourning displayed for the late Queen .Mother, the great Treaty of Locarno is Ito he signed. It has Leon said of this Treaty that it will give the world a ray of sunshine after the dark clouds of war and its aftermath, which have I enshrouded the nations for more than a decade. An exchange, says that assuming that the Locarno d rente, or serif-. of treaties mean 'what they say and there is no reason to doubt their sincerity—a new era lias dawned in Europe. Ihe possibility oi war has not been abolished, but its probability has been minimized, if not altogether removed. These treaties are not to lie regarded as political. They are more than that. fundamentally their enforcement and observance make for commercial and financial restoration in every signatory country and tbe world at large. If it is not necessary to guard frontiers then the man power represented in this enforied diversion of productive effort rail he restored to useful activities. Also the expense of maintaining such protective or aggressive agencies may he eliminated. This means in essence a lessened degree of taxation and the lifting of an oppressive burden from the hacks of a wearied people. it means not o iv that production will be increused but that- from this increased production prosperity will flow. It means that debts, national and international. may be ] aid in part or ill whole. \Ylien we lake into account all the good things that are made tangible nud possible by the Locarno Conference. there is much reason for the enthusiasm with which the treaties have been received. Tbe world, for the first time since tbe armistice, emerges from the gloom and overshadowing memory of a war passed into the sunshine of the hope of no war to follow. The world can now settle down to business with an assurance heretofore lacking. As the full .significance of the Locarno Treaties is realised, wo may expect what amounts to an economic readjustment of world trade and commerce, business men may well take into account the many factors that will tend to shape commerce from now on. and not only business men but lalwir as well, should begin to study these problems. Perhaps competition will divert trade in new channels to the temporary detriment of sections hero and there, but increased production inevitably brings increased prosperity l>oth to those who engage in it. and those who promote it. British prestige has l>een enhanced tremendously by tbe Locarno Treaties. Tbe course of British polities since the war has (ome in for much criteism, bur it may be said now that the level headed sense and the high ideal of Brent Britain, have Ted Europe into a position where convalescence will soon be followed by normal health. Tt is a moral victory in which all English speaking people may take particular pride.

obligations under the Treaty. But New Zealand through the Prime Minister, Mr Coates, has intimated already that the country will he behind the Motherland. The fact is that the ties that hind the Empire require no treaties to hold them together. As a great Commonwealth, they are alive to tlio fact that the common weal demands unity and co-operation, and Air Coates, acting for the Cabinet and the country will have his action approved generally. As to the treaty itself, it promises to safeguard the pence of Europe. But there is no obligation on Britain, and far less of course oil any Dominion, to go to war to maintain any frontier East of the Rhine. The Pact is a guarantee of the existing frontier between Gennady on the one hand and Belgium on the other, and has nothing to do with anv other issue. France and Belgium pledge themselves not to attack Germany. Germany puedges herself not to attack Belgium and France. Britain and Italy pledge themselves to go to the assistance of France or Belgium or Germany. without any discrimination, if there is an attack in violation of those mutual guarantees. The Treaty does not guarantee that there will be no more war in Western Europe. It does not make it certain that there will never again he. a struggle for Alsnco-l-on-aine Or for the Rhino frontier. No treaty could make that certain. What it does make certain is that if such a conflict- arises, the Power responsible for it. will he opposed hy all the other signatories to the I act. In any vase it makes it absolutely terlain that the I’uyrer responsible, whether it is France or whether it is Germany, will be opposed by Britain. ’lnal is to say. DaPa t seems to be a real tiling, a durable and precious tiling, la-cause it is concerned with one question and one only, and that a question on which there is something like a general agreement by the civilised Powers. The present frontier between Germany and Belgium and France is as near to a fair frontier as ci> ilisation can devise. I hole are neither historical nor ethnographical reasons why it should not stand for an indefinite period. If France had succeeded in her attempt to get the Powers at Locarno to ini hide the present Eastern as well as the present Western frontier of Germany in their mutual guarantee, the Conference would either have broken up in disagreement, or its guarantee would not have stood the lest of time. But there is no reason why the Pact that has now been initialled should not endure until that day arrives, which is provided for in its eighth Article - the day when the Council of the League. liv a fun-thirds majority, decides that the l.cagiie of Nations itself for the future piovidcs sufficient protection to the High Contracting Parties.