"Not A Static Peace"

Two days out from New York on S. S. Leviathan last week, Senator Dwight Whitney Morrow received a radiogram from Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson. The essence thereof:

Would Mr. Morrow please modify his plans for a vacation in southern Europe to the extent of getting off the Leviathan at Southampton and going up to London? Would he tactfully explain to the British Government, which acted as "honest broker" between France and Italy in their recent naval agreement (TIME, March 9), that Mr. Stimson and President Hoover think this agreement is quite all right but wish to avoid the battle royal which would ensue if the U. S. Senate were asked to approve it? Would Senator Morrow, in short, tell the British to tell the French and Italians that the U. S. would like to give merely its tacit consent to the formula under which they propose to adhere to the London Naval Treaty?

Promptly the spry little man from New Jersey radioed back his hearty willingness to help. He worked under Chairman Stimson of the U. S. Delegation at the London Naval Conference last year (TIME, Jan. 20, 1930, et seq.). In the opinion of many observers he was "by far the most able member of the U. S. Delegation and the only one who played fair with the press."

"Naval Holiday," After more than a fortnight of diplomatic pussyfooting, the text of the Franco-Italian naval agreement was finally published last week. It ran true to official forecasts that its main feature is a Franco-Italian "naval holiday" until 1932.

Specific provisos which the statesmen concerned hesitated so long to reveal:

1) France and Italy are each to have 6,000 tons more capital ship allowance than they bound themselves to accept by the Washington Treaty of 1922. Since a "capital ship" may be of from 10,000 to 35,000 tons, it was claimed that the 6,000-ton raise is "purely technical"--but U. S. Senators would, of course, not understand this.

2) France is to come in under the London Naval Treaty of 1930 with her huge submarine fleet undiminished, but Great Britain has her fingers crossed upon this point. Quote from the new agreement:

"Members of the British Commonwealth of Nations maintain that the figure of 81,989 tons is too high in relation to their destroyer figure of 150,000 tons pro- vided for under the London treaty."

This amounts to serving notice that Britain may at any time decide to increase her cruiser fleet, having recourse to the "escalator clause" of the London Naval Treaty which permits any signatory to start building above the treaty quota if "menaced" by a non-signatory power.

3) After the 1930 classes of Italian and French cruisers are completed, neither nation will build destroyers of more than 6.1-inch gun calibre, but France and Italy will each build two "Pocket Dread-naughts" of 23,333 tons, copying in this respect the famed German Ersatz Preussen (TIME, Nov. 26, 1928), hailed by naval experts as the world's most efficient small war boat.*

Italian Concession, Under the new "naval holiday" arrangement France will have a supremacy over Italy of some 150,000 tons, but much of this in old or inefficient ships. Said His Excellency Benito Mussolini in Rome last week:

"I can affirm with a clear conscience that Italy in this matter has done her duty toward civilized nations."

Echoed the Great Man's alert, spade-bearded, snapping-eyed Foreign Minister, Signer Dino Grandi:

"Peace has been the constant object of Il Duce's policy: a political, social and economic peace among citizens, classes and groups, a religious peace and a peace among nations and states; a loyal and not a deceitful peace; an operating and not a static peace because it is aimed at preserving men and nations; a peace founded on truth. . . . [The agreement] represents a victory for no particular nation, but a victory for all the nations, a victory for equity and good sense, which is no less important in the relations between na- tions as in the relations between individuals. It leaves behind no recriminations or bitterness, but on the contrary it has caused a new mutual trust to arise among nations. It solved a grave problem which it was urgent to solve."

*Germans were told precisely what the Socialist Reichstag had in mind last week when it proposed to double the surtax on German incomes: to buld a sister to the Ersatz Preussen.

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