NEWS OF THE WEEK T HE first stage of the debate
in the French Chamber on the ratification of the Franco-Soviet Pact was Notable for a striking speech in defence of the treaty by the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Commission, M. Torres. There is a case to be made for the Pact, and a case against it. Coming at this moment, it looks, in con- junction with the Little Entente talks in Paris a week ago, very like the coping-stone of a French project for the encirclement of Germany. And it is thus that Germans to a man interpret it. Feeling in Berlin is running high, and denunciations of the Pact in the disciplined Press are bitter.. There are even threats, to which no great importance need be attached, that the German Government may treat the ratification of the agreement as a ground for denouncing the Locarno Treaty, with which the new instrument is alleged to be incompatible, and then establish a military occupa- tion of the demilitarised zone on the Rhine. Another objection to the Pact may be urged. Every bilateral agreement of this kind does in a sense throw doubt on the efficacy of the League Covenant. If the Covenant confers security, why bring it into disrepute by suggesting that special and subsidiary agreements are necessary as well ?
