LEAGUE IDEALS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 18, 22 January 1931, Page 7

LEAGUE IDEALS.

LOYALTY OF NATIONS.

Disarmament Acid Test of

Present Day.

GENEVA SESSION OPENS

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, January 21

The Foreign Secretary, Mr. Arthur Henderson, at the opening of the public session of the Council of the League of Nations at Geneva strongly urged that the League should lead the nations in a bold approach to the disarmament problem.

Disarmament by collective agreement was the most important question to-day in international politics, said Mr. Henderson, and the acid test of every nation's loyalty to the ideals, aims and purposes of the League. An effective scheme of armament reduction was essential to the future welfare of the peoples of the world. No doubt they would be told that the present was not a good time for a reduction of arms and tliat there was anxiety and unrest, and a fear—even talk—of war. These things might be true, said Mr. Henderson, but he asked in how great a measure this unrest was simply the result of the armaments which now exist and how far it was the result of the uncertainty as to whether war could be pre:. id.

If there was any real danger in the present situation it was, he believed, not the risk of a war in the immediate future, but rather that through failure to carry out a policy of disarmament the nations might drift into a situation similar to that which existed before the late war.

Some people said the nations were falling into the old system of alliance for warlike ends. On behalf of the British Government, said Mr. Henderson, he would state without hesitation that he knew of.no alliance and could know of none except the great world alliance against war and against armaments by which war was prepared and carried on. As for the British Government and people he asserted that those only were their friends who -would work with them to carry that cause to victory.