CZECHOSLOVAKIA, RUMANIA, AND YUGOSLAVIA (TREATY).

HC Deb 08 March 1933 vol 275 cc1157-8

3. Mr. LLEWELLYN-JONES

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the pact or treaty recently entered into by the three Powers of the Little Entente has been registered with the secretariat of the League of Nations in accordance with the provisions of Article XVIII of the Covenant of the League; and whether any member of the League has raised the question that the engagements of this treaty are inconsistent with the terms of the Covenant and therefore contravene Article XX of the Covenant?

Sir J. SIMON

As I informed my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Captain Cunningham-Reid) on the 22nd February, I have not yet been notified of the registration with the League of the Part of Organisation signed by the representatives of Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia at Geneva on the 16th February. I have, however, read in the Press an account of a communication stated to have been addressed by the new Permanent Council of the Little Entente to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations at Geneva, informing him of the intention that this treaty shall be registered so soon as it shall have been ratified 'by the three contracting States. According to the terms of the treaty itself, the exchange of ratifications is to take place, at the latest, on the occasion of the next regular meeting of the Permanent Council of the Little Entente. This meeting is due to be held at Prague in May. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative. In this connection I would draw attention to Article 10 of the Pact of Organisation, which reads as follows: The common policy of the Permanent Council must be inspired by the general principles contained in all the chief instruments of post-War international policy such as the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Pact of Paris, the General Pact of Arbitration, the eventual Disarmament Conventions and the Treaties of Locarno. Moreover, nothing in the present Pact can be contrary to the principles and to the terms of the Covenant of the League of Nations.