Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1922-03-03
THE FOUR POWER TREArY.

The zap treaty having been disposed Of
the senate now turns its attention to the four power
treaty, concerning. the maintenance Of the present
status in the Pacific. 1t is quite evident that there
Will be very pronounced objection to this treaty,
although its ratification is confidently expected. The
opposition comes from those who have been stub
bornly opposed to the ratification of any treaty
which means anything pertaining to our foreign re-
~1ations, and from a number of those who were SIM
Porters OF the Versailles treaty presented by Presi-
dent Wilson, and who because of the defeat of that
treaty are now determined to defeat anything which
may be considered a substitute for it.. '
Senator Borah is a representative of the proup
OF rreeoncilables and Senator Hitchcock. who was
a leader IN the movement for the ratification Of the
Paris treaty, has announced his opposition to the
present agreement unless important reservations
are changed in it. ~ 49,
The four power treaty is an agreement which
provides in substance that the four nations having
Important insular interests in the Pacific shall keep
their hands off each others property, and that tag
erosion from any other source is threatened they
Will consult with each other as to the methods to be
adopted. That is the sum and substance of the
whole matter. There is no obligation. expressed or
implied.
The statement that the negotiations pertaining
to this treaty we're conducted in secret are utterly
futile. Many OF the conversations which led up to
the enactment OF this treaty were necessarily secret.
They could not be otherwise. They were just as
secret as all negotiations anywhere and everywhere
which are intended to be preliminary to a decision
on important matters. Meh representing various
nations or various interests in comforting on such
subjects must have a certain freedom of comn1uni-
cation with each other which can not be obtained
unless their conversation is understood to be more
|or less confidential. Statements may be made in
this confidential manner which would be highly inn
proper to be made publicly. Questions in a critical
situation may be discussed frankly in secret, but if
discussed with frankness in public would arouse an
tagonism and make impossible the very ends which
are sought to be obtained. II
1t is charged that the United States was used
BY Great Britain as a means Of terminating the An
glo-Japanese treaty which had served the British
purpose and which Great Britain now desired to
discontinue. The Anglo-Japanese treaty could not
have been less satisfactory to Great. Britain, than it
was to the United States, and for years that agree
ment has stood, if not as a menace, at least as a
source of irritation to this country, and it has been,
one Of the strongest desires of American statesmen
that 1T should be brought to an end. 1t has been
brought to an end and in a manner which has been
accepted by Japan without doing great violence to
Japanese sensibilities.
In place of a two-power agreement which was
an %irritant, there is now in prospect a four power
agreement which provides absolute security. There
is no evidence or need of either amendment or reser-
walton and if any reservation is adopted it will be
either meaningless or injurious.