POSITION ON ARMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 100, 30 April 1945, Page 6

POSITION ON ARMS

CLARIFICATION WANTED

SAN FRANCISCO, April 28. A strong sentiment has developed in the American delegation to UNCIO against giving the security organisation the authority to fix the size of the American navy after the war, reports the Associated Press.

Senator Tom Connally is leading a movement to ensure that the Charter contains no power to order disarmament without treaty agreements, and he considers that only individual countries can decide the size of the forces they will maintain. State Department officials explained that under the Yalta agreement any decisions which the security council makes on armaments will require the Big Four's unanimous approval. Disarmament was not mentioned specifically, but Mr. J. T. Grew, Under-Sec-retary of State, has said it is linked with the agreement.

Advisers are reported to have told the American delegates that neither the Yalta agreement on voting nor the Dumbarton Oaks formula permitted the proposed organisation to order any country to scuttle ships, destroy equipment, or demobilise men, but Senator Connally and some other delegates want $h§ issue, clarified.

Rec. 11 a.m

Allied and Japanese forces today are engaged in a dramatic race for the last Japanese escape gap out of Burma, says a correspondent with the Southeast Asia Command. Two Japanese coluM&s, the remnants of their 15th and a3rd divisions, are hurrying towards Pegu railway station, on the main Mandalay-Rangoon railway, and the key to the escape route into Siam. The 14th Army, in its drive to Rangoon, is at present well ahead of one Japanese column pressing forward on either side. The Japanese to the east are being gradually pushed back to the Shan Hills.

The indications are that the Japanese to the west will be cut off from their escape route. One column has already killed 747 Japanese and taken 78 prisoners. The stiffening opposition suggests that the Japanese intend to fight strongly for Pegu. The country is marshy and difficult, and only slow progress was made yesterday.—Bm