'The news about the Naval Conference to-day ix instructive. M. Briand says. plainly that its' prospects are dismal. With the usual French clear-sightedness he con-trusts pleasing "abstractions" with "realities" that cannot be ignored. Mr, Ramsay MacDonald, still obsessed by passionate wishes, declines to confess the conference failure, Washington is said to believe that more progress is being made than appears, but as the United States flatly decline to join in the security pact which France demands as the price of allowing her hands to be tied with regard to Italy, it is dificult to see on what Washington's optimism is founded. A plenary session of the conference ext week is to tell the public where matters stand. But the public know already. The _five-Power reduction compact appears bound to fail, exactly where failure was to be expected from the outset, namely, over the impossibility of agreement between France, and Italy. It this expectation is fulfilled, as seems inevitable, we may Took to see America trying to persuade Great Britain to enter into a separate limitation programme with her and Japan. Whether or not Japan agrees to the American proposals, it is to be hoped that Parliament and every tion of influence Yn Great. will resist her being drawn into such a compact. The objection it is obvious. America need only think of the Pacific. Great Britain has to think of all the world. To bind herself to America and Japay ignoring other factors, would be 9 most perilous step. 4
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.