Reply to Kellogg

". . . His Majesty's Government will support the movement to the utmost of their power. . . ."

Such was the totally misleading theme-sentence of a suave, lengthy reply returned, last week, by British Foreign Minister Sir Austen Chamberlain to the proposal made by U. S. Secretary of State Frank Billings Kellogg (TIME, April 23 et seq.) for a treaty "renouncing war as an instrument of national policy" among the U. S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

Tucked away in the 12 additional sections of the British reply are a series of interpretive qualifications which would deprive of all meaning the phrase "renouncing war as an instrument of national policy." For example, Sir Austen Chamberlain declares: "I should remind your Excellency that there are certain regions of the world the welfare and integrity of which constitute a special and vital interest for our peace and safety.

"His Majesty's Government have been at pains to make it clear in the past that interference with these regions cannot be suffered. Their protection against attack is to the British Empire a measure of self-defense. It must be clearly understood that his Majesty's Government in Great Britain accept the new treaty upon the distinct understanding that it does not prejudice their freedom of action in this respect. The Government of the United States has comparable interests, any disregard of which by a foreign power, they have declared that they would regard as an unfriendly act. His Majesty's Government believe, therefore, that in defining their position they are expressing the intention and meaning of the United States Government."

The last sentence refers to a recent speech by Mr. Kellogg before the American Society of International Law, wherein he declared that a nation signatory to the Kellogg Pact would not be deprived of the right to make war in self defense. This interpretation the British have now broadened to mean virtually that any war in which His Majesty's Government may choose to engage will be pro facto a war of self defense.

Disgusted observers deemed, last week, that the negotiations have now become so adroitly involved that no document capable of preventing war between the signatories is at all likely to be drafted, signed.

In France, where the Kellogg Pact is cordially mistrusted, scathing U. S. Journalist William Morton Fullerton observed, last week, in the Paris Figaro, that the Powers seem to have infected each other with "contagious Pactomania."