PEACE BY TREATY.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 February 1922, Page 5

PEACE BY TREATY.

THE WASHINGTON PACTS.

ALL TREATIES SIGNED.

GREAT WORK OVER.

“NEW MORN OF PROMISE.” By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Washington, Feb. 6. The final session was called to order at 10 o’clock. The various delegations immediately proceeded to sign the treaties. The nations, in alphabetical order, signed all the treaties simultaneously. Mr. Balfour, Lord Lee, Sir Auckland Geddes, and the Dominion representatives, were heartily applauded as they marched to the table. Mr. Balfour signed twice, the second time for South Africa. Movie cameras recorded the ceremony.

President Harding addressed the conference, and recalled the hopes he had expressed when welcoming the delegates three months ago. He declared it was one of the supreme compensations of his life to contemplate the worth-while of the accomplishment.

“I offer,” he said, “the thanks of our nation and our people, perhaps I dare volunteer to utter them for the • world. I will say with every confidence that the faityh plighted here today, kept in national honor, will mark the beginning of a new and better epoch in human progress in revealing to the light of world public opinion that, without surrender of sovereignty, without impaired nationality or affronted national pride, solutions have been found in amity. If the world has hungered for a new assurance it may feast at the banquet which the Conference has spread. I am sure the people of the United States are supremely gratified, yet they cannot appreciate how marvellously you have wrought. “When the days were dragging and agreements delayed few stopped to realise that here was a Conference' where only a unanimous agreement could be made to rule, where there were no victors to command and no vanquished to yield. You have agreed, in spite of all difficulties. No new standards of national honor are sought, but indictments of national dishonor have been drawn. It matters little what we appraise as the outstanding achievement; any one alone would have justified the Conference. The whole achievement has so cleared the atmosphere that it will seem like breathing the refreshing air of a new morn of promise. You have halted folly and lifted burdens.”

VICTORY FOR BRITAIN. A FRENCH TRIBUTE. London, Feb. 6. French chagrin at the Uritrsn success at Washington is strikingly reflected in an editorial in the Paris Figaro, which bitterly declares that the Conference was a victory for Britain, who was unable to maintain the struggle with the United States, but nevertheless obtained the right to maintain the world’s most powerful fleet. Britain sacrificed only what she had already lost and had given up only what she could not get. and at the same time she had given an impression of goodwill and abnegation. The Figaro pays a tribute to Mr. Balfour, who “made the fullest use Of what Americans call idealism. Not once did he openly contest the American thesis. Mr. Balfour tabled his cards, disdained petty trickery, and finally emerged victor from a perilous enterprise. Britain has strengthened her precious •friendship with the United States, and at the same time consolidated her interests throughout the world.” —Aus.N.Z. Cable Assn.