ARMAMENTS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 21 May 1926, Page 5

ARMAMENTS

DIFFICULT TO DEFINE.

DEBATE AT GENEVA

WHAT TITE DELEGATES SAID

BY CABLE—TRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. LONDON, Mnv 20. The difficulty in defining “ armament's” was disclosed in some striking speeches at Geneva. Viscount Cecil suggested that a. great step would toe ,accomplished if conscription rvere abolished.

M. Bone our (France) immediately answered that some; countries preferred professional armies. Ren or Perez (Argentine) cited Switzerland 1 as the most, heavily armed nation in the world; per head' of population, yet, he said, she was never accused of being armed for offence. Viscount Cecil rose, and, with a cynical expression, asked 1 : “Is there any force in the world 'that is acknowledged. to be maintained for the purposes of aggression?” He proceeded to maintain that submarines were always offensive, but M. Boncour argued that in certain circumstances they were defensive, with which Spain agreed. Mr Gibson (America) contended that only coastal fortifications, and forts removed from a frontier, could be. classified; as defensive, while offensive armaments consisted of anything dominating the' rights or territories of foreign countries. At the same time, he pointed out, offensive weapon's could easily be regarded as defensive when a nation was defending its own honour. Senor Perez said that it was the spirit of peoples rather than their armaments' which, constituted the danger. M. Boncour insisted tha tthei commission must seek to limit offensive armaments to the fullest extent, leaving the League of Nations free regard ing defensive armaments. Then rose M. Do Brouckere (Belgium), a grey-bearded, fine, upstanding figure, who brought war from the abstract to reality. He .pictured) a great gas attack on a modern city, whose inhabitants had first been driven from their houses by an aerial bombardment and then asphyxiated by gas It was imperative that the commission should limit industrial potentialities. Ho added: “Chemical warfare is so terrible, we are almost! tempted to prohibit aviation, whereby it becomes possible, but 1 am. convinced it will be possible to devise a system of controi which’ will greatly lessen the dangers.” The debate was adjourned. GENEVA, May 19. Following Viscount Cecil’s renewal of the argument that the disarmament inquiry should be based on peace time standards, it was decided to appoint a drafting committee to endeavour to draw up a formula that would meet the British and French viewpoints, the latter holding that in such limitation, cognisance should be paid to the rapidity wherewith other States can come to the assistance of the State attacked.