RATIONS’ ARMAMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 257, 29 September 1932, Page 7

RATIONS’ ARMAMENTS

ATTITUDE OF GERMANY

FREEDOM OF ADJUSTMENT.

DESIRE FOR SOLUTION OF PROBLEM.

(United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) BERLIN, Sept. 28.

Herr von Papen, in a statement, declares that M. Herriot’s speech on Sunday (referring to the German demands in connection with armaments) places the facts upside down. “Germany,” he says, “never demanded to arm herself to the same extent to which France and other nations are armed. Her demands amount to nothing more than within the limits of the Disarmament Convention.

“Germany must have the same freedom to adjust her armaments to her needs as is enjoyed by every other State,” says Herr von Papen. “The question is merely Germany’s parity or rights and equal treatment at the Disarmament Conference. Is it evidence of disarmament that French military expenditure has risen 100 per cent, in six years? Germany is ready now, as before, to accept any solution of the disarmament problem compatible with her honour and security. “Germany,” he concludes, “has- waited patiently for twelve years and cannot wait longer and stand by and watch the Disarmament Conference falsifying the whole idea of disarmament by a wrong assessment of the disarmament factors and the application of two different yardsticks to indivir dual States.”