The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-04-24
Pact To Become Universally
Effective so Days After Signed.
Date Based on Assumption
Huns Will Accept May 10.
TWENTY NATIONS AFFECTED
United States May Technically
Sign a Separate Treaty.
Versailles All Ready for Recep-
tiOn of Germans.
tBy the Associated Press,

Paris, April PA clause has been
drafted for insertion in the peace
treaty fixing the date for the transition
to a state of peace sixty days after
the signing of the treaty. If the treaty
is signed about May Is peace thus will
become effective thruout the world on
July is.
The purpose of this provision is to
prevent confusion among the more
than twenty belligerent nations. which
might fix different dates in their Vari-
Gus ratifications. According to the
present plan. each nation will ratify
the treaty according to its own laws
but all will unite in a common date
which will become a universal day OF
peace. This follows the precedent es-
tablished at the conclusion of previous
wars but it is increasingly necessary
in the present case owing to the large
number of nations signing the treaty.
1t is being considered whether the
United States as an associated power,
but not an ally, should sign separate
treaty of peace with Germany. 1t
would be the same treaty as that
signed by the allies and would be
signed at the same time as part of the
same ceremony, but the effect of the
separate treaty would be to preserve
the position of the United States as an
associated instead of an allied power,
tween the United States and Germany
instead of between the United States
and a large number of other allied
powers.
Count Won Brockdorff- -Rantzau, in
his last reply, stated that the German
plenipotentiaries had been designated
witt the idea that pourparlers viii
occur simultaneously with the delivery
of the preliminaries of peace" This
expectation to engage in discussions
from the outset is leading to a careful
scrutiny of President Wilson's -four
teen points as intimations have been
received that the chief discussion will
be whether the treaty accords with
those points.
One expert engaged in this scrutiny
says the principal discussion will oc-
cur over the fifth point, relative to
the German colonies, and the second,
which provides for free, open and
absolute freedom of the seas
German Arrival Indefinite.
Paris, April 23.-The date of the
arrival of the German peace delega-
ton at Versailles is still undetermined
and the allied representatives appar-
emily are not pressing for haste, in
view of the fact that the uncertain-
ties of the Italian situation might pos
sibly make an early Inauguration of
formal discussion between the repre-
sentatives of the allied and associated
powers and the Germans impossible.
Delay in framing the treaty of peace
is a reason for not desiring the speedy
arrival of the enemy plenipotentiaries.
The German delegation will be larger
than was announced. General Nudent,
Marshal Foch's representative at Spa,
has been officially informed that in
addition to the peace delegates there
+ will be a party of 75 persons, including
exnerts and some forty electricians
and te1egraphers. Three minor Ger
man officials who are now at Spa will
leave Immediately for Versailles to
make arrangements regarding tele-
graphing and facilities for feeding the
delegation