THE DISARMAMENT CRISIS.

Evening Star, Issue 21570, 16 November 1933, Page 10

THE DISARMAMENT CRISIS.

Thkrb is no doubt that tho disarmament cause has reached a crisis. In a real sense it is a crisis for the League of Nations, whose first aim was a peaceful world. The Germans will not confer. The other Powers are divided as to whether any object can be gained by going on without them. Signor Mussolini thinks not. Mr Arthur Henderson has been forced to consider resigning from the conference, tho genera! apathy towards it, caused by fears of its hopelessness, being so discouraging. That would be a disaster, because tho efforts of Mr Henderson for this greatest cause have been like fighting with beasts at Ephesus. Tho British Government has gone so much further than others that, to make up leeway, it has been, forced, to revise. its naval programme and build three new cruisers, two of which will bo of battle size instead of the smaller craft for policing the seas which it had hoped would form tho only construction in future. Yet the British Government, despite the lead it has given up till now, has not escaped attempts to make it a scapegoat for the delay of disarmament hopes. The motion of censure moved against it by a Labour member in the House of Commons did not get much support, only 54 members voting for it, and it deserved no more. Yet there is a case that successive plans of reduction put forward by Sir John Simon, each more liberal than its predecessors, might, have been more effective if the Foreign Minister could have offered at first what ho offered last. “The Germany of 1933,” it has been said, “is not tho Germany of 1932,” and the inference for some minds has been that Germany would never have reached the mood of obstinacy and defiance which . she exhibits to-day if sbo had not been goaded and incensed by her neighbours’ long delay to fulfil their fourteen-years-old promise of disarmament.

It is not deni* that that is true. The two Gcrmanys that / were in conflict before the war did not cease to continue after it. Successive Republican Governments, Catholic and Social Democrat, with all their doubtless genuine desire for peace and for a new era, never dared to affront or suppress the old military class which had learned nothing and forgotten nothing from its defeat. Their members had too much respect for the traditions of military class privilege and importance in which they had been brought up so to do. So, just as far as that was possible, the disarmament clauses of Versailles wore evaded. From latest revelations it would appear that the Allied Governments knew that that was being done. They did not disclose all that they knew, because the disarmament was sufficient doubtless to ensure that Germany would be powerless to molest her neighbours for a very long time to come, and they would naturally hope that, in the meantime, forces for peace, within and without her borders, would prevail. The present position is that German loaders preach peace to foreigners but war to homo audiences. The outlook, however, is not entirely hopeless. Herr Hitler, it can be believed, has no desire for another war, even if his country were in a position to wage it. His latest victory has at least this good effect, that it makes him independent of tho Nationalist junkers. Franco still stands for an equality of armaments—which means reduction upon her part —so long as it can bo had with security. Tho guarantee required for that has been a period of probation, but Mr Ramsay MacDonald has said that “ probation ” is tho wrong word. Supervision, which would bo applied to all Rowers, not fo Germany alone, to prevent increases has been the real proposal. It would be absurd for German dignity to bo outraged by that. It must bo hoped that, even at this discouraging hour, the Rowers will exert themselves to keep the conference i.P. being., ‘ The Times - has pointed out

how Herr Hitler can help, if he has the will. “ Germany signed the Kellogg Pact renouncing war as an instrument of policy. Will Herr Hitler tell his own compatriots that Germany intends to stand by the Pact? Will the German Government remove from his official post the Brunswick professor whoso school manual recommends the study of chemical and bacteriological warfare? Moral rearmanent is at the very centre of Nazi teaching. And the aims of the party involve tho absorption of Germans outside Germany. Other countries therefore cannot possibly regard the Nazi war speeches as an internal matter. They must cease before there can bo a hope of effective disarmament. It is still a thousandfold worth while to sign a convention which will establish the principle that the smaller armies of tho future are to serve only the purposes of defence and police. Its signature oven without Germany would not be altogether valueless. It would bring home to the German people, as perhaps nothing else would, their present moral isolation. And it should be possible to make it plain to them that its coming into operation would depend not so much on the lapse of a specified number of years as on tho cessation of war propaganda.”