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Hokitika Guardian, 17 June 1930, Page 4

l!T IB spite of the official jubiliations on both .sides of the Atlantic over the Naval Tieaty, public opinion at Home seems still to he divided in regard to its importance and value. Mr Baldwin's action in moving for a Select Committee to consider and report upon the Treaty was rejected in the Commons by 80 votes,, but there is some reasonable ground, considers a northern writer, for asking, with the Con.sorva.tive deader, whether Britain’s safety is still secured at sea, whether she is still in a position to fulfill all her Imperial obligations, and what she will do if the other Powers insist on enlarging the’T navies. No doubt a great many people who are r.ot wholly satisfied with the Tieaty are deterred from criticising it by the extravagant nonsense talked by Mr Churchill, who fold the House that this naval pact is “a treaty of inferiority” and that the Nava! Conference was the greatest failure recorded in international diplomacy Mr Ma Donald very wisely contented himself with pointing out that the Conference had at a’l events put a break on ruinous naval competition, and the House was clearly inclined to “let it go at that.” Of course there is no disguising the fact that, as Britnin and the United States expected that the Conference.-would succeed in arranging a Five Power agreement, the Three Power Pact is in one sense an admission of failure. Most people, when asked why the desired Five Power treaty did not materialise, are inclined to throw the blame on France. But, as lias been pointed out, it is possible to find strong arguments in support of France, and a very interesting plea, in France’s defence has been contributed recently to the “Daily Herald” by that eminent pacifist Mr Norman Angell. The author of “The Great Illusion,” who is now in Parliament. protests against the popular tendency to blame France for everything that -went wrong at the Conference and to attribute all the recent international friction to “French militarism.” -Mr Angell very justly points out that Britain has refused just as emphatically as France to surrender the means of national defence, the only difference being that Berlin relies on her navies while' Frame depends upon her armies. All that France has asked for is security against aggression, combined with the certainty that future international disputes will be decided not by force, but bv arbitration. If Franco were assured that in any ease she would lie protected from attack, and if formal guarantees to that effect were given bv Die Great Powers, or a majorilv ol thorn, she would promptly

fall into lino with Britain and the I'nited States. Ait tins, is true, ami it conies with groat fore O' from a declare.l paciiist such- as Mr Norman Angell.