2 AUGUST 1924, Page 2

A special objection from the English point of view is

that the regional scheme of guarantee is by continents, and would therefore cut across the whole organization of the British Empire. The Canadian Government in its reply, which also rejects the scheme, emphasizes this point Constituent parts of the British Empire which had entered on such a scheme would be, like the characters in Mr. Galsworthy's recent play, involved in a network of conflicting loyalties from which there would be no escape. Indeed, the whole scheme would take the development of the League of Nations in a direction exactly opposite to that in which we conceive its true future to lie. For the draft Treaty, while doing nothing to broaden the basis of the League itself, would. enor- mously extend and complicate the commitments of the member Governments. But in our view what should be done to the League is exactly the opposite. We should like to see a diminution and a simplification of the obligations of the member States and a radical broadening of the basis of the League itself. Instead of new obligations and arrangements, we should like to see Article 10 itself abolished if necessary, while, on the other hand, we should not rest until every great nation in the world was a member of the League. We hold that by far the most useful contribution to' peace that Mr. MacDonald can make is to press persistently for the inclusion of both Russia and Germany in the League on equal terms with the other great Powers. _