DISARMAMENT

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 27 September 1928, Page 5

DISARMAMENT

LEAGUE DELIBERATIONS. MEETING OF COMMITTEE. UNiSATTOFAICTORY FOSITTON. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright.) (Australian Press Association.) (LONDON, 'Sept. 26. The culminating disarmament debate at Geneva appears to have satisfied no one. The crux of the resolution finally* adopted lay in the concluding proviso that M. Loudon should keep himself informed of t.ho progress of the Powers’ naval negotiations in order to lie able to convene the (Preparatory Commission at the end of the year, or in any case at the beginning of 1929. Mr Locker-Lampson, while reluctantly voting in favour of the motion, made it clear th'at the British Government could not accept the view that the conference should be held in '1929 irrespective of the -state of the preparatory work. To summon the conference without a preliminary agreement on principle, would be nothing short of a disaster, he said. It might result in an irreparable set-back to the cause of disarmament.

Hungary joined Germany in not voting 'because the resolution did not fix a definite early date for the conference. Reports from Beriln show that the resolution is interpreted as presaging failure. “It i-s the last act in the disarmament farce',” says a Nationalist newspaper, while the 'Socialist Press describes the debate as the collapse of disarmament. The moderate party makes the same implication in -milder terms. The Press publishes full reports of Count Bornstorff’s speech, stressing the passage in which he replied to M. Briand’s taunt regarding Germany* ’s latent belligerent powers. Count Bornstorff declared that -Germany had no heavy * artillery, tanks, military, a'ir force or reserves of munitions. Her Avar industries were destroyed and it Av'ould require many months to train new forces and still longer to adapt peace industries to the purposes of Avar. Germany Avould bo defeated long before these things Averc accomplished.