REDUCTION OF ARMIES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 5, 6 July 1922, Page 7

REDUCTION OF ARMIES

DRAFT OF PROPOSED TREATY

SYSTEM OF MUTUAL PROTECTION.

(UMTEB • fftCSS ASSOCIATION.—CWTRIMT.)

(AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZEALAND CAILB ASSOCIATION.) PARIS, sth July.

Lord Robert Cecil's draft treaty, which was discussed at the meeting of the Armaments Commission of the League of Nations to-day, provides:— !

1. No armaments reduction proposal shall be effective unless it: is general.

2. No Government shall be responsible for reduction on a large scale unless it is guaranteed territorial security. '

3. Guarantees of territorial security can only be secured by a defensive alliance of all the interested countries, pledging themselves to aid one another in case of attack, the obligation being limited to countries-in the same part of the globe as the country attacked.

4. Special measures shall be-taken to defend any country running special risks owing to geographical or historical reasons. ' . ' '. '

5. The foregoing resolutions depend on reduction 'in conformity with a pre-es-tablished scale. , i ■

6. Effective machinery is to be created to ensure the establishment and maintenance of such reduction:.

Lord Robert Cecil, replying to questions, tentatively accepted Lord Eaher's proposals as the complement _of his scheme. Lord Esher fixes 30,000 men aa the military unit, and proposes to., allowBelgium two units. Czecho-Slovakia three, Denmark two, France,six, Britain three, Greece .four, Italy four, Jugoslavia three, Holland three, Norway two, Poland four, Portugal one, Rumania three. Sweden two, Spain three, Switzerland two, and Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria a« fixed by the peace treaties. The seduction fa the suggested figures mil be made within six months and will operate for-ten years.-,