The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-03-29
THE IRISH RESERVATION
Should Not Have Been Accepted By the
u. S. Senate.

The part of the Irish reservation
adopted by the Senate to which the
| British government would refuse tc
accede is not the part to which Mr.
Lodge objected. The British govern.
cerned if the United States proclaimed
an academic adherence to the prin.
ciple of determination. What the
British government, ii asked to accept
the American treaty reservations
would feel as slap in the face is that
part of this reservation dealing spe-
officially with Ireland and the expires.
sion of sympathy with the aspirations
of the Irish people for a government
of their own choice which would be
an independent republic if Sim Fein
leadership were to dictate the settle.
ment.
It is unprecedented to attach to a
peace treaty reservations wholly alien
in subject matter to anything men
toned in the treaty itself. Ireland is
not dealt with even remotely in the
treaty of Versailles. Suppose that in
consulting to this treaty, the British
Parliament had adopted a reservation
meant for our government tacitly to
approve or positively to disapprove-
sympathizing with the well-known as.
pirations of the Filipinos for a govern
ment of their own choice; obviously
the president would remind Great
Britain that the treaty in no way dealt
with the Philippines and that the Brit
ish reservation was an unwarranted
-. l.. N. E
the United States in view of the fact
that treaty is contract concerning
its subject matter alone and cannot be
made a vehicle for imposing another
nations will upon our own in the field
of national policy.
In offering no objection to the fatal
part of the Irish reservation, Mr.. Lodge
picked out the academic clause about
adherence to the principle of self-de-
termination as the one crime of the
reservation and thus he placed himself
in az absurd position. for he declared
on The spot that he desired the ratifi-
cation Of the treaty. If he desired the
treaty's ratification, he should have
fought the reservation because of the
Ireland in IT, He failed to do that be
cause of the large and powerful Irish
influence in Massachusetts.
Mr.. Lodge also lost the opportunity,
which he could have used against the
of charging that the
Irish reservation was in reality an
trap designed to make
the reservations so impossible from the
diplomatic viewpoint that no one could
blame the president for re-
fusing TO accept them or 20 submit
them to the other powers for their in
dorsement. Senator Sterling did make
this charge, but Mr.. Lodge was in no
position TO make II.
Mr. Lodges leadership collapsed, he
lost control Of the situation, his own
party followers split almost evenly on
the first vOte-l7 for and 20 against
and he was beaten still worse on sub
sequent votes. For his appeal to them
to stand firmly against "self-determi-
nation" in the abstract, while Offering
no objection TO the application Of il in
The cSxcrete case presented, was not I,
only futile but grotesque-
Mr.. Lodge suffered a defeat Of great I
magnitude because. under his party |
Of the Senate, a reservation I
vas added 70 the list which would at
ford the president . much greater
measure Of justification for pccketing
he treaty IN case il should now have 4
reached him with the Senate's eondi-
ions az ratification, than he would
,therwise have had. II the game be-
NJ PLAYED in the Senate is nothing but
lolitics. our senior seuator-himself
easter hand-seems to have been at
Ne last moment outwittcd and ont
,iayed- The spectacle as q whole is
ne q the sogricsf Il these sorry times.
- Springfield Republican.