War as Against Public London, Nov. 9.
"The need for 2 general convention, supplementary to the Peace Pact, was urged by General Smyts, clu: ing the course of his Rhodes Memorial lecture, at Rhodes. House, Oxford, to-day General Smuts suggested that the convention should clearly define what were private, as distinct from Public, wars, and place the aggressor in a private war in-the position of of outlaw, depriving him of all rights under international law.
General Smuts defined a private war as one waged by a party for its own. national purposes, and a public war as one in which the State was involved, not for its own, individual ends, but for police pur-}poses with others in pursuance of Public policy under an instrument Eke the League Covenant. lonly covered private war, and that the Convention he had outlined would solve the one great outstanding problem between Great Brita' and America, namely the question of the freedom of the seas, The Economic Weapon If the aggressor, continued General Smuts, were made to forfeit all the rights of commercial relations while engaged in private war, the question of neutral rights would be revolutionized and the doctrine of the freedom of the seas would cease to be of practical importance.
An even more important result. of the proposed Convention, he declared, would be to make the economic sanctions, under Article 16 of the League Covenant, workable with the ce-operation of the United States, since an outlaw under the Peace Pact would general [be identical with the aggressor and would be boycotted for flouting the unanimous decision of the League.
General Smuts further suggested that the "aggressor" might be do-fined by a conference of all the Powers interested in the area were danger threatened, on similar lines to the conference' provided for by the Pacific Ocean Pact signed at Washington in 1921—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.