M. BRIAND ON FOREIGN POLITICS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12620, 3 December 1926, Page 6

M. BRIAND ON FOREIGN POLITICS

M. Briand’s statement, published as by cable yesterday morning, is satisfactory to a degree. It sweeps away all the small rumours and discussions of small facts on which small minds base their fears of some dim but terrible danger of war. And as to that, M. Briand in this statement says, with both truth and point, that another war would be Europe’s catastrophe. This is really the basis on which the League of Nations is working for peace; on which, indeed, that very important body was founded. It is good to see M. Briand loyal to the same. He goes further in his declaration that the Locarno Pact is a well-conceived attempt to help the League by enabling it to apply the principles of its existence to contemporary facts. His reference to Germany is not as satisfactory. He indulged in a little wrangling about the sacrifices of the war, even to the extent'that Germany made no sacrifices—surely, after all, a preposterous saying. This rather tactlessly implies a certain suspicion of Germany. He is even more tactless in his declaration that admission to the League is an honour to Germany, The obvious implication of inferiority makes this reference tactless indeed. Nevertheless, we may hope for better things, for M. Briand applauds the Locarno Pact, to which Germany is a party, and Germany’s acceptance of the substitution of League control for Allied control in the matter of German post-war'disarmhment. 1 But all this would have been better left unsaid. Far bettei; is what Lord Robert Cecil said toward the end of October about Germany’s admission to the League of Nations. He treated it not as , an honour to Germany, but as a thing of great value to the League and its magnificent policy of permanent peace by arbitration. Germany would gi*e the League’s work the advantage of German thoroughness and The proved German skill in organisation. Germany was also adding by her numbers power to the League’s influence. Moreover, the admission of Germany had stopped, once and for all, the taunt that the League was a league of victors. And, on the whole, it was a strong help in the march towards the universality desired by all civilised nations. . That is the proper welcome to Germany, the whole-hearted Welcome to an ally in a great cause, the welcome due to a Power that will work whole-heartedly for that cause. Ihe friends of M. Briand may say that he meant this bv his praise of the Locarno Pact, to which Germany is a party. If so, most; people will regret that, neglecting the opportunity to speak as Lord Cecil had spoken, he said tactless things.