VAIN EFFORT SO FAR

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 81, 5 April 1930, Page 9

VAIN EFFORT SO FAR

HOPE NOT ABANDONED

THREE POWERS IN AGREEMENT

British Official Wireless. (Received sth April, 11 a.m.)

RUGBY, 4th April.

Tho British and French delegates to the Naval Conference and their expert advisers again spent several hours today in a search for a formula setting out an agreed interpretation of certain articles of the League Covenant. Although their efforts have not yet been successful, tho task has not been abandoned, and hopes arc still entertained that a formula may bo found which will so increase France's sense of security as to enable her to make an appreciable reduction in her naval tonnage requirements without explicitly or implicitly extending tho obligations to which Britain is committed under the League Covenant and the Locarno Treaty.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Mac Donald), the Foreign Secretary (Mr. Henderson), accompanied by Sir1 Robert •Vansittart and others, met the French Foreign Minister (M. Briand) at luncheon and'had a discussion on the subject which lasted till after 4 o'clock. The discussion will be resumed at St. James's Palace to-morrow morning.

Meanwhile pricipal naval experts of tho United States, Britain, and Japan spent a great part of the day examining the reservations attached to the Japanese Government's reply to the compromise tonnage proposals addressed to Tokio. Good, progress was made. . The submarine exports met this' afternoon oh the subject of the 'proposals for humanising submarine warfare and limiting the size of the submarine. It is expected that the report of these experts will bo forthcoming in the course of the next few days.