ARMS EMBARGO.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 75, 29 March 1928, Page 7

ARMS EMBARGO.

EFFECT ON CHINA.

Efforts For International Pact. CONVENTION NOT RATIFIED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received ll.P>o a.m.) RUGBY, March 28.

Questions were asked in the House 0 f Commons regarding the ratification of the League of Nations Convention signed in 1925, providing for the control of international traffic in grins. In one question it was averred that th® continuance of civil strife in China was prolonged by the ease with which contesting parties could obtain arms from Europe.

Sir Austen Chamberlain, Foreign Secretary, replying to these questions, said thftt as regarded the League of Nations Convention, the British Government were prepared to ratify it at any moment when tliry could secure the limultaneous ratification by the principal aims-producing Powers. As he had stated, on November 24, 192(5, the British Government had made this suggestion to the liovernments of Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, (ierinany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United States of America.

The replies received, however, indicted that there was no immediate prospect of simultaneous ratification by »11 these Governments.

In regard to the supply of arms to China for civil war purposes, the only operative instrument for controlling it was the China Arms Embargo Agreement of 1010. The effectiveness of this agreement had been largely impaired by the fact that some of the principal arms-supplying States, notably Germany, C'zecho-Slovakia and the Union o| Soicalist Soviet Republics were not a party to it. The possibility of making the embargo more fully effective had been considered at a, meeting of. the diplomatic body in Peking on February 21 last, when the German Minister declared the readiness of his Government to accede to the agreement. The meeting decided that an idcntic telegram should be sent by all the representatives to their respective Governments, drawing attention to the importance of the agreement and to the necessity for preventing the exportation of arms and munitions of war to China, also expressing the conviction those those Powers, who had not yet taken measures in this respect, should be induced to do so as Boon as posijble.

On March 1 the Japanese Foreign Minister handed a Note to the Soviet Ambassador. urging that his Government should refrain from allowing the Importation of arms into China by their nationals.

It?|»rcsentations had also been mnde to the Czecho-Slovakian Government by the British Minister at Prague. Dr. Benes had replied that Czecho slovakia could pot become a party to the agreement prohibiting the export of arms to China unless it were really an international one equally binding on all States.

LEAGUE CONVENTIONS.

BRITAIN'S RATIFICATION.

(Received a.m.) LON DON, March 28

In tlie House of Common* Sir Austen Chnmherlnin told questioners that 34 conventions and protocols hart been concluded under the League of Nations. Britain had signed 30, of which 24 were ratified. Britain was also prepared to ratify the arms traffic convention as soon ap she could secure simultaneous ratification by the principal arms-pro-ducing Powers.

There was no immediate prospect of ratification by the latter, including the United States.

' \. and N.Z. and Sydney "Sun.")

RUSSIA OBJECTS.

WILL NOT SIGN EMBARGO. LONDON, March 28. The Moscow correspondent of the British United l'rcss Association says the Soviet (iovcrnmeiit, protesting that it never did, and never intends to, introduce arms into China has declined Japan's invitation to sign the Peking Convention of l!>lf>. This prohibits the iiH|wirtntioii ot' nmis into China. The Not jet. also repudiates the charge that lliiHsian officials have ill-treated Chinese.

How ever, says the correspondent, the newxpnprr "Izvestia" at the same time records t.)ie fact that several hundred Chinese were either arrested or deported from Soviet territory oil charges of uniii' gMng or of speculating in Soviet