Mr. Kellogg ' s Note handed to the French Ambassador at Washington
on February 27th did not seem to carry things much further. But we notice in it a sentence which seems to denote an advance of opinion in the
States. He wrote :--
" I am reluctant to believe, however, that the provisions of the Covenant of the League of Nations really stand in the way of the co-operation of the United States and members of the League of Nations in a common effort to abolish the institution of war."
This struck us at once as a sentence which would not have fitted into any of his earlier Notes, and the Times confirmed our opinion in an article on Saturday. We may be wrong, but it gives us a pleasant feeling that he thinks the United States has advanced in its willingness to understand the League and, understanding it, to co- operate with it more closely and usefully. In the next sentence to the Gnewe quote Mr. Kellogg referred to the Havana Conference and the Republics' " unqualified condemnation of war as an instrument of national policy in their mutual relations." M. Briand at once pointed out that the accepted text of the Pan-American resolution spoke of " wars of aggression." There the matter halts.
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