RESTLESS EUROPE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 12080, 20 October 1933, Page 5

RESTLESS EUROPE

DISTRUST, FEARS AND ALA RMB

GRAVITY OF GERMANY’S WITHDRAWAL... FORMER BREACH FURTHER WIDENED. : ’ J SIR JOHN SUM ON’S REVIEW. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Oct. 18. Sir John Simon last night broadcast a statement in regard to the recent disarmament negotiations and the withdrawal of Germany from the conference. He said every man or "'oman who at all appreciates the importance °f good international relations to the future of the world realised the gravity of the event.

After reviewing the sequence of events, Sir John Simon said :

“Germany’s position is known to all. Here is a great community, which, after the Joss of the Avar, was disarmed under the Treaty of Versailles. Britain took a leading part in securing in December last a- declaration subscribed to by France, Italy, and the United States, as ivell as ourselves, that Germany ought to receive equality of rights in a regime of security.” “By that declaration avc stand. We have never Avavered from it. Wo. assert to its validity to-day. But a new fact —a. A - ery serious fact —has emerged which does not i ll the least alter the pledge which we gave, hut necessarily affects the detailed manner of its fulfilment. Recent events in Europe have unquestionably increased the feeling of nervousness —the sense of positive alarm—which is the roa) reason why heavily-armed States hesitate to weaken their armed forcesWORE ANXIETY THAN FOR YEARS PAST. “Lord Cecil said two days ago: ‘lt is very genuine anxiety. It would he folly to ignore it.’ Thera is more anxiety in England about the international situation than for many years past, and on the Continent feeling is more acute. Everybody knows why. We. therefore, tried in these conversations to work ouf modifications in the British plan Avhieh this new situaton requred if an agreement Avas to be reachedMr. Henderson declared on October 9: ‘On some of the more important questions the approach is manifestly influenced by the present unsettled state of Europe and the ensuing distrust, fears and alarms.’ DISARMAMENT BY STAGES. “We began discussing amongst ourselves Avhetlier, in applying the accepted principle of proceeding by stages, avg must not set up a suitable system of international supervision anfl start by transformations in the Continental armies which have already been provisionally agreed. Mcamvhile, there Avould be, from the beginning of the convention. an agreement that no Poavcl would manufacture or acquire any arms of the sort to he eventually abolished. In discussing this scheme, Germany stipulated, quite n'ghtlv, that disarmament of the second stage must he all laid down in detail in the treaty itself, and that supervision must he applied generally, and not to one or two countries alone. With all that- 1 quite agree, and I certainly thought Ave Avcre finding in our discussions a much closer approach to a possible basis of agreement than evoi before

WEAPONS FOR GERMANY. “I reported these steps in language which no .fair-minded per, son could regard as iprovocative to the bureau of the conference, and I regretted very much that the German Foreign Minister, Baron von Neurath, was not there to take part, 1 do not, for a moment, suggest that an agreement had been reached, but J. do most emphatically say that the question which seemed likely to give most trouble was not the proposal of successive peiiodffi but the question of whether Germany should have .from the very beginning what were called ‘samples/ that is, types of weapons no"' ■prohibited to her. 1 had asked to be informed by the German Government exactly what they meant by samples. 1 had reminded her Foreign Minister that me had been promised this information. Wo wo it) not the only Government which was waiting for it. SNUB TO NEURATH. "What happened when at length the German claim was formally re-stated? There eannotbe the least doubt that, instead of defining what was meant by samples, the- claim was for substantial rearmament from the very beginning. T very much regret to see that Baron von Neurath. in addressing the foreign press, lias been accusing mo of taking a false view as to this, and, indeed, of rnistating the facts. 1 am perfectly ready to publish the documents, and records to show the position, and, indeed, in view of what be said, die British Government- is entitled to do so.

ALL GOOD WORK JEOPARDISED

“There is not the slightest doubt that the attitude taken up by the German Government at the present moment represented a further widening of the breach, and that all Iho good work which has been Put into the recent conversations by all of us, with mutual goodwill, i s jeopardised if not precluded by this attitude. I voice the thought of the British Government as a whole when I say that, nothing shall be left undone in future to attain the success of an honest and honorable compact upon which the hopes of mankind for the future peace of the world are largely dependent.”