Evening star., 1925-08-30
VITAL QUESTIONS FACE
COMING LEAGUE SESSION
German Entrance and Security Issuea
Promise to Give Meeting Color
Unequaled in Past.

| dlreCL interest 10 them, but equally
| frontiers of states remote and with
| out direct interest.
! This protocol collapsed by reason
of British objection which was founded
upon the fact that no British govern
/ ment could commit the British people
to defend any frontiers save those Of
direct importance TO Englishmen.
| Thus a Majority of Britons recognized
reluctantly that nothing could happen
in the regions where France. Belgium
and Germany are tangent without In
| Volving Britain, but they did not con
cede that there could be any interest
! for themselves in the regions where
| Poland touches Germany or Russia
for example.
Security Pact in Type
| Accordingly. the substitute pro-
posal of the British based upon the
German proposal of February 9 was
| for separate pacts-that Is, that in
stead Of general agreement making
every nation responsible for every
other, nations which had common in
terests should work out private pacts
| or course, these pacts were TO be reg
| istered with the league and to be in
accordance with league principles. but
they were nevertheless to be separate
bargains. The security pact now be-
| ing debated in London. Paris and Ber-
lin is the type of these.
BY this proposed ARA ngemept
| France and Germany would agree to
! accept forever the existing frontier
and bind themselves not to attack
each other. and Great Britain. as an
| interested neighbor, would guarantee
the inviolability of the bargain Tn Is,
should either France or Germany vio-
| late 1t Britain would be bound TO in
| terVene against the aggressor. Bel
GUM. OIL course, was equally covered
| and the whole transaction took the
form of that guarantee of Belgian
neutrality which Germany trans.
formed into a scrap of paper" with
fatal consequences IL years ago.
| This scheme had the advantage
| that 1t saved Britain from making
any separate alliance with France
against Germany, thus reviving
whole system of hostile combinations
And il gave a British guarantee not
to one nation against another, but
to system of peace against any
possible aggressor. 1t was in form
| neither anti-German nor anti-F'rench
But 1t was rigidly limited and did
not go beyond the Rhfneland area
Germany Welcomes Plan.
Germany, of course. welcomed such
a proposal, because she saw in 1t the
possibility OF realizing her desires in
| the east, at the expense of surrender
ing, In the west, hopes which her
best judgment told her were vain.
| For to recover Alsace- Lorraine meant
war, and war provoked by her meant
the entrance of Britain as a foe
again But If she could get a west
ern agreement which would prevent
France from ever assisting Poland
or CZechoslovakia in case of German
aggression, her hands would be free
to realize her eastern hopes
But the maneuver was transparent
in Paris. Warsaw and Prague, and
just as Germany was assailed by her
Russian partner of the Rapallo
treaty over the conditions of entrance
into the league, France was at once
bombarded from Prague and War
saw. The Poles and the Czechs
cogently argued that France could
not In honor and merely to get a
British guarantee for her own from
tiers abandon her eastern allies, with
whom she had made a sacred con-
tract. And they also pointed out
that. having overcome them. as she
might do with relative ease if France
| remained passive, Germany could
then turn west. and even British aid
might be insufficient to check a vic
torious and newly aggra ndized Ger
many.
France Provides Answer.
Thus. in reality, one came back to
the old question of the protocol. The
protocol had been based upon the
idea that all frontiers were matters
OF concern for all nations, that it was
In practice impossible to isolate one
area, and one group of nations while
war, II 1t came, would involve all
nations. II an assassin's shot in re-
mote Serajevo could plunge three
quarters of the habitable globe in
conflict, what use to argue that any
restricted pact could be of real value?
And France. which had given adher-
ence to the protocol, supplied the
best evidence in her own experience,
because she was not only the neigh
Dor OF Germany and vitality interested
In the security pact as it affected her
own frontiers, but she was also the
ally of Poland and Czechoslovakia
and, therefore, concerned in their
| frontiers.
Now when it comes TO the league
1t Is plain that the great mass of
smaller nations, which feel them
selves exposed to attack either on the
side OF Russia or Germany or likely
to be involved against their will in
any European confagration. are
going to view the present security
pact with suspicion, since 1t NAV we'll
seem to them an invitation to con-
"A
their efforts will then be directed at
reviving the old protocol and in pre-
venting the making of the separate
security pact. which would, from
their point Of view. he no more than
| making peace in one corner of Eu-
rope while making war more likely
| IN another.
| III Germany makes a security pact
covering her western frontiers and at
| the same time refuses to make the
| same kind of an agreement covering
, her eastern or southern frontiers, II is
1unmistakable that she holds that there
| lis a difference in the permanence of
the two sets of limits. In theory this
does not concern the British, who are
| anxious to get a detente between
France and Germany by removing
French fears of ultimate German at
tack to recover ceLorraine. But
1t does just as manifestly alarm Po-
land and Czechoslovakia, since 1t
gives them new reason to fear Ger
| man policy.
Offer of Little Value.
The German offer to make treaties
OF arbitration with. those eastern
| states and thus in principle to re-
nounce force as a means of adjusting
issues Is of little value, for 1t Is of
| small matter to these nations how :
Germany undertakes to acquire th,.,r
territories. What they desire for
their own security is precisely the
same assurance which Germany offers
France and Belgium and studiouslv
declines to offer Poland and Czecho.
| slovakia. Thus the German security
pact proposal. while from the British
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