ABSTRACT
The Locarno Pact was neither Western nor mutual. It hoped to separate Germany from Russia, undoing the rapprochement achieved at Rapallo in 1922, when they had signed a pact of mutual understanding. One prescient comment noted that the major flaw in Locarno was its failure to deal with the Eastern frontiers: "The lighting of the match will take place, if it takes place at all, in Middle and Eastern Europe." The Parliamentary Party nevertheless warned that the real test of the treaty depended on whether it was followed by disarmament. It urged that steps be taken to bring Russia into the League of Nations and to encourage her participation in European arrangements. Dalton marshaled, in particular, attacked head-on one of the shibboleths of earlier Labour belief—that before peace could be assured the existing frontiers of Europe. Most Labour commentators preferred the Capper resolution to that of Borah, which was more general, essentially a statement of international good will.
