DISCUSSIONS ON ARMS STANDARDISATION

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25082, 14 January 1947, Page 3

DISCUSSIONS ON ARMS STANDARDISATION

UNITED STATES AND CANADA WASHINGTON, Dec. 14. Standardisation of arms by the United Stated and Canada is being discussed, but will take “quite a long time,” said Mr Ray Atherton, United States Ambassador to Canada, to-day. Speaking on the State Department’s weekly foreign policy broadcast, Mr Atherton said standardisation of weapons had “naturally” been “discussed from time to time” by the two countries. He said work on the programme had begun during the. war “by the force of circumstances rather than design.” He said he believed “over-all standardisation would take quite a long time.” Another speaker, the Canadian Ambassador, Mr Hume Wrong, said there has been “no formal agreement to standardise.” “But common sense requires that when the security of two countries is bound up together, the forces concerned should be able to operate together without difficulty,” Mr Wrong said.

A State Department spokesman said last Monday that arms standardisation talks had been conducted “from time to time” by Britain, Canada, and the United States. The spokesman said the talks did not constitute a political or military alliance directed aganist any other nation. Mr Wrong said a “good deal” of standardisation already existed. Canadian aeroplanes use American engines, he said, and “nearly everyone knows, that Canada as well as Britain was a partner with you in the development of atomic energy.”