The Washington herald., 1918-12-09
.SOLONS TO PASS
ON PEACE TERMS.
No Treaty to Be Signed
Without Approval Of
U. S. Congress.

No definitive treaty of peace be-
tween the allied governments or the
United States and the central pow
ers will be drawn until each ma
tion's parliamentary bodies have
been given ample opportunity to
pass upon the principles and es-
sential groundwork Of the proposed
treaty. Lack of any official state
ment from Europe has failed to
clarity discussions of the procedure
to be followed by the sovereign
powers in reaching q peace treaty,
but the foregoing policy. quite in
accord with procedure in the past,
is predicted generally by diplomatic
agents here.
In the opinion of officials in touch
with the agencies employed by
President Wilson in outlining his
plans for the journey to Europe,
the first step to be taken by the
diplomatic Representatives at Paris
will be the formulation OF the pre-
liminaries Of peace, q document to
be signed by the delegates, and
which, in effect, will be a protocol
embodying the basic policies to gov
ern the exposition of the final peace
terms.
To Settle Primary Questions.
A prominent diplomatic agent said
yesterday:
'The formulating OF the prelimi-
naries Of peace, or the protocol, Will
no doubt prove the most important
negotiation Of the series made neces-
sary for the ending of the war. There
il reason to believe that the proposed
protocol will be drawn primarily to
provide solutions to every question
that gave rise to the war. If this
principle of procedure is accepted, and
all precedent calls for such procedure.
1t is obvious that President Wilson
may rest content IL his principles OF
international conduct are embodied in
the preliminaries. 1t is possible that
he will never attend a peace confer
ence. His ambitions may be achieved
In bringing about a righteous and
Just preliminaries, or protocol. Ger
tainly it would appear that he believes
that he must win or lose IN the state
ment of aims which we have every
reason to believe will be contained in
the protocol.
With the signing of the protocol
the procedure for peace necessarily
is halted for the moment 1t will be
necessary then for the parliaments of
the several nations. depending upon
their constitutional laws, to pass upon
the protocol and to ratify It. II rati-
fed. the protocol is then used as a
basis for the peace negotiations which
are held between representatives of
the anti-German nations and the dele
gates from the central powers.
Course a Wise One.
TT liz obvious that such a course
is a wise one. By this method II rs
possible for nations neutral during the
war to protest II they are prejudiciai-
ly affected by the terms Of the proto-
col This hapepned at the conclusion
of the RussoTurkish war. The pre-
liminaries were signed at San Stefano
on March 3, 1873, but before a definite
treaty was concluded the European n
powers interviewed and at the Con-
gress of Berlin. July Is, 1873, modified
the provisions of the preliminaries and
thereby forced Russia to forego GER
tain peace terms she had indicated
in the preliminaries.
'iAt the close Of the Spanish-Amer-
ican war the peace commissioners
termed the preliminaries a peace pro
tocol, which was signed at Wash
ington August u. 1895. and was later
confirmed by both nations, the defin-
tive treaty being signed at Paris
December 10. 1898.
Judging from previous prelimina-
ries. as drawn after the close Of
hostilities of the greater modern
wars, it is safe to assume that among
the provisions which the prelimina-
ries will define as contemplated in
the peace terms will be:
Forecast of Contents.
Recognition of the conditional char
acter of the convention and its de-
pendence on the defnitive treaty to
be conducted later.
Appointment of plenipotendaries for
negotiating the definiuve peace, the
number being indicated by each side.
The time and place of the meeting
Methods for the ratification Of the
preliminaries.
Adhesion of the allies; the exten-