BRITISH PARLIAMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 31 July 1928, Page 3

BRITISH PARLIAMENT

DEBATE IN COMMONS, v (British Official Wireless.) '' v - / (Received this day at 11.15 a.m.) LONDON, July 30. A debate on foreign affairs took place in the Commons to-day. Sir Austen Chamberlain made a statement on various matters raised in regard to disarmament. Ho said undoubtedly the signature of the Kellogg Treaty was now a fact, to which all must pay attention and of which all should take account, but ho would rather have dealt with the matter of disarmament apart from the Kellogg Treaty, because whether that treaty bad been proposed or not, one would still have been faced with the question of the ~ limitation of armaments. Conversations with France on the reduction of armaments had been successful. He was about to communicate to other powers a compromise at which Britain and France had arrived, in the r hope it might be acceptable to them ■ also, and thus a great obstacle to progress would have been removed and a step made in advance, but until these proposals had been communicated to other Governments, lie did not like to say more about them.

Tlie naval issue was the one in which we had particular interest in regard to the treaty for the renunciation of war. Sir A. Chamberlain said there was a binding obligation to see tlie new treaty was not inconsistent with the terms of the covenant of the League of Nations. We had satisfied ourselves it was not, and that it was not inconsistent with tlie treaties of Locarno.

As to the attitude of the British Government on the question of self-de-fence in connection with the Kellogg Pact, Sir-A. Chamberlain quoted a pas-, sage from the statement made by Mr Kellogg to the effect that it was inherent in every sovereign State and was implicit in every treaty that a nation was free to defend its territory from V the attack of invasion, and that it - alone was competent to decide when circumstances required recourse to war in self-defence. Sir A. Chamberlain regretted some members had been troubled about Bri-

tish self-defence reservations, declaring that they were equivalent to the Mont roe Doctrine in the United States. He ■’ did not know why they should be prophets of evil. In every treaty of arbitration which they had signed they expressly reserved ail questions relating to the Munroe Doctrine. The British Government were stating nothing unreasonable when they stated theie were parts of the world where Britain, too, had a Munroe Doctrine, because the’integrity of those countries was part of the defence of the British

Empire. . + . He proposed to go to Pans before the end of the new month and to sign on behalf of this country the treaty which the Government of the United ' states had proposed lie did not think anyone could say exactly the importance which this treaty would have in the future. It might mean very much for the peace of the world, but it niign mean not so much and even very little T but he deprecated too great expectations being formed lest they should be w followed by too great a disappointment. Tlie Kellogg Treaty was a recognition of the horrors of war and of the fact that war was a thing to which recourse was only to be had in the last resort, and for self defence It would depend on how the rest o. the world thought United States were going to judge an action of an aggressor whether they were going to help or hinder him. If American opinion ranged itself behind its own treaty, then indeed the signature of this treaty • ’Would .be •an additional and formidable deterrent of war, and an additional and most valuable securWm ity for peace. That was what the Bn tisli Government hoped it might bo, and it was in that part that the Britis i Government were glad to co-operate with the United States Government in bringing their proposal to fruition. A BISHOP’S VIEWS. Assn.—United Service (Received this day at 12.25 pim.) LONDON, July 30. Bishop Durham says the extreme unpopularity of Anglo-Catholicsm disclosed in the Commons debate mer ts the gravest consideration. It AngioCntholicism of tl.o clergy created such V . a deadweight of suspicion anil dislike A against themselves, their good influence must largely he paralysed “ 1 concealed my belief that the clergv s lawlessness discredited their spiritual claims and lessened then * nol ‘ fluenee. Lawlessness has developed cunning sophistry, emptying the lega obligation and even ordination vows validity. HI faith is infecting the \er titv of the truth and the charaotei ried tl.o subject i-totarp* ' j t is freely admitted that the Estub

lisliment itself is jeopardised. Agitation against the revised prayer hook rekindled the fires of religious passion to an unexpected degree.”