Lowell Warns of Danger if Policy of Stimson Notes is Pursued in Far East

Discussing the attitude of the United States toward any agreements arising out of the Far Eastern conflict, President Lowell declares in the leading article of the current number of Foreign Affairs that the interpretation placed upon the Pact of Paris by Secretary Stimson's note of January 7 to Japan, "If generally accepted, might make the relation of states more uncertain, more full of danger than if the Pact has been unsigned."

May Disregard Agreements.

Secretary Stimson's statement, he says, seems to mean that if the present trouble should end by an agreement whereby China should cede to Japan any rights in Manchuria, the United States, Russia or any other signatory would have a right under the Pact to disregard them, if in its opinion they were acquired by other than pacific means. If this means that a signatory may intervene when the cession is made, and insist that it be modified, that has been done in the past and does not require the Pact of Paris. It was done by the Congress of Berlin in 1878. It has been done twice with Japan, first when she was made to yield the Liaotung peninsula in 1895, and again when the United States caused her to reduce her twenty-one demands in 1915. But if it means that any signatory of the Pact has a right at any future time to refuse to recognize the provisions of a treaty so made, the question is much more serious. Of course, to do so would be a certain cause of friction, highly likely to produce an extremely dangerous situation.

"Of course the Pact is not retroactive. If it were, our title to California, part of Arizona and New Mexico, to the Philippines and Porto Rico would be without international recognition. But for the future, unless wars are to cease entirely or are to be followed by no changes of territory, the Pact of Paris, with an interpretation whereby the signatories are under no obligation to prevent war, yet are at liberty to disregard its results, might well create more causes of strife than it would allay. It would signify that any nation could repudiate its treaties, and disregard those made by others, on the ground of duress.

Unsetties Right

"Now the object of international law is to make the rights of nations certain, not to unsettle them; if a wrong has been done to correct it at once, not to leave it as a festering sore for any nation to probe thereafter, or as an excuse for action that would otherwise be without justification. One of the worst international evils is the existence of indefinite claims that can be used on convenient occasions. Our government will not go to war, and unless under great provocation will not suspend commercial intercourse, as Japan knows full well; but while using whatever pacific pressure it can to obtain a fair settlement, it must ultimately recognize the situation that develops; and, if so, is it not wise to make clear that we do not claim an interpretation of the Pact that, if generally accepted, might make the relation of states more uncertain, more full of danger than if the Pact had been unsigned?"