DISARMAMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 20655, 1 December 1930, Page 10

DISARMAMENT.

The Preparatory Disarmament Commission of the League of Nations, which has been meeting again at Geneva, is not a body that can pride itself on tho progress of its achievements to date. It will be remembered that tho seventh Assembly of tho League, to which Germany was admitted, requested tho council to convene a general conference on tho reduction and limitation of armaments, if possible before its next meeting. That request was made four years ago, and tho conference has not been held yet. It is not even certain that it will bo held next year. There was a dual reason for tho question coming into tho foreground when it did. Germany had reason to have a special interest in it, because the requirement of Germany’s disarmament in the Treaty of Versailles was quite definitely associated with tho understanding that when’ her guns had been turned into church bells, or something else as peaceful, the Powers that supervised that process would follow suit. It was Germany that sot the scale for armies, and for navies also, for years before tho Great War. It was a natural supposition that, when that threat to Europe, no longer existed, it.would be easy for tho nations that had lived in fear of Germany to reduce their armaments. A second reason was that certain obstacles' to this consummation, found to exist still in tho first years which followed the war, were believed to have boon removed by the Locarno Treaties. Obstacles have still remained, however, in the general fears and jealousies of the nations that are hesitating still to take their own; medicine. An early conclusion was , that disarmament was impossible unless the. nations could first

bo given a new sense of security. The powers of The Hague tribunal have been extended and the Kellogg Pact signed by some sixty countries for promotion of that comfortable feeling, but no nation yet trusts another. The League’s efforts have met with a deadlock in the (Conflict of two opposing principles: No disarmament can bo arrived at without security; security is impossible without disarmament. Agreement on good resolutions presents no difficulty when those arc sufficiently general. The Kellogg Pact was one of them. The preliminary Commission on Disarmament, which for years now has been preparing for that general conference, lias just passed another. A convention has been approved by which representatives assembled to make recommendations agree “to limit and as far, as possible reduce naval armaments.” There are not many naval Powers. Every State that has no,navy, or none to speak of, would bo enthusiastic for that recommendation. The commission has gone further. On Great Britain’s initiative it has approved unanimously of a permanent disarmament commission to bo set up at Geneva to supervise the execution of the convention,* and this has been hailed by Lord Cecil as a great step forwiird. As the commission can have no power to do more than report and draw attention with all politeness to the acts of such Powers as may seem slower than others in furthering the good cause, the advance would not seem much for four years’ work. Count Bernstorff as an enthusiast for disarmament occupies rather an absurd position, his advocacy recalling much too strongly the fable of the fox that lost, his tail. He has found fault with the commission, foxsubordinating everything up till now to naval disarmament, and Lord Cecil has had to answer that complaint. The answer was easy to the British delegate; the commission has given quite as much time probably to military as to naval. reductions, but it has not been shown that it has achieved much in either sphere. Tho continual postponements of the conference for which it was to prepare the way make the plainest indication of the difficulties that have beset its task.