Directory_and_Chronicle_1941 — Page 65

THE ANTI-WAR TREATY (KELLOGG PACT)

Excellency:

1.-UNITED STATES, INVITATION TO CHINA.

Legation of the United States of America

Peking, August 27, 1928.

I have the honour to inform you that the Governments of Germany, the United States of America, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, The Irish Free State, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, and Czecho-Slovakia have this day signed in Paris a treaty binding them to renounce war as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another and to seek only by pacific means the settlement of or solution of all disputes which may arise among them.

This treaty, as Your Excellency is aware, is the outcome of negotiations which commenced on June 20, 1927, when M. Briand, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, submitted to my Government a draft of a pact of perpetual friendship between France and the United States. In the course of the subsequent negotiations this idea was extended so as to include as original signatories of the anti-war treaty not only France and the United States but also Japan, the British Empire and all the Governments which participated with France and Great Britain in the Locarno agreements, namely, Belgium, Czecho-Slovakia, Germany, Italy, and Poland. This procedure met the point raised by the British Government in its note of May 19, 1928, where it stated that the treaty from its very nature was not one which concerned that Government alone but was one in which that Government could not undertake to participate otherwise than jointly and simultaneously with the Government in the Dominions and the Government of India; it also settled satisfactorily the question whether there was any inconsistency between the new treaty and the treaties of Locarno, thus meeting the observations of the French Govern- ment as to the necessity of extending the number of original signatories.

The decision to limit the original signatories to the Powers named above, that is, to the United States, Japan, the parties to the Locarno treaties, the British Dominions, and India was based entirely upon practical considerations. It was the desire of the United States that the negotiations be successfully con- cluded at the earliest possible moment and that the treaty become operative without the delay that would inevitably result were prior universal acceptance made a condition precedent to its coming into force. My Government felt, moreover, that if these Powers could agreed upon a simple renunciation of war as an instrumtnt of national policy, there could be no doubt that most if not all the other Powers of the world would find the formula equally acceptable and would hasten to lend their unqualified support to so impressive a move ment for the perpetuation of peace. The United States has, however, been anxious from the beginning that no state should feel deprived of an opport unity to participate promptly in the new treaty and thus not only align itself formally and solemnly with this new manifestation of the popular demand for world peace but also avail itself of the identical benefits enjoyed by the original signatories Accordingly, in the draft treaty proposed by it, the United States made specific provision for participation in the treaty by any and every Power desiring to identify itself therewith and this same provision is found in the definitive instrument signed to-day in Paris. It will also be observed that the Powers signing the treaty have recorded in the preamble

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