* * The Treaties in question are the Arbitration Con.
vention of 1908 and the Bryan Treaty of 1914. The Bryan Treaty provides that any dispute between France and the United States, when diplomacy has failed and the parties have not invoked arbitration, shall be submitted to a permanent international commission. Nevertheless, nothing but good could come from the forging of a new link of friendship. M. Briand himself thinks this desirable or he would not have taken so much trouble to discuss it ; and in America it has the strong advocacy of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University. We have only one comment to make.' If the apparatus for preventing war between France and the United States, though it is fairly complete now, could usefully be amplified, why should not the principle also apply to Great Britain ? If anti-war declarations are being made between countries which are traditionally good friends, Great Britain ought not to be behindhand with a similar declaration, for there is no more convinced friend of peace than this country.
* * * *
Previous page
