IMPORTANT TASK

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 253, 22 September 1933, Page 7

IMPORTANT TASK

AGREEMENT ON DISARMAMENT. / . ECHO FROM EUROPE. CONSIDERABLE SUCCESS SECURED. (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) . (British Official Wireless.) Received September 22, 11.10 a.m. RUGBY, Sept. 21. Sir John Simon, Captain R. A. Eden and Hon. A. G. Cadogan, of the Foreign Office, will fly to Paris to-mor-row morning and will have a conversation with the French Ministers. They will afterwards take the night train for Geneva, arriving there on Saturday for the League meetings. Next week’s League meeting will afford the opportunity for conversations between the statesmen of the leading Powers upon disarmament. Although the Disarmament Conference does not rc-assemble until October 16, facts which will then have to be faced have not been neglected, but in the recent series of conversations and exchanges, in which Britain, France, the United States and Italy have each taken part, efforts have been made to straighten out the many difficulties which were apparent when the conference adjourned in June. Although the events in Europe since then have not helped this task, they have certainly added to its importance. . The alternatives are a disarmament convention and no convention, and the consequences of failure, it is recognised, would almost inevitably have a thoroughly bad influence on European relationships. When the proceedings are resumed at the conference, the British Government draft convention will continue to provide the basis of the discussions. Meanwhile, next week’s conversations will be devoted to simplifying its course by smoothing out, through a preliminary understanding, the points which caused, or are likely to cause, difficulty. Already substantial progress towards an agreement has been made, although the decisions upon isolated questions are not expected, or called for, by the individual countries, since they must, of necessity, be considered in relation to the whole disr armament picture. Thus the Anglo-French conversations have been mainly concerned with eliciting the French views regarding supervision and examining the manner in which they . might work in with the general proposals for the disarmament convention. The British draft convention provides for a period of nine months before any material should be disposed of, and the newspapers consider it possible that the French views may be met by lengthening this period. It is desirable in British quarters that this interim period should not be barren of all disarmament and that it should bo accelerated when an examination showed this interim period to have been satisfactorily completed. The Anglo-French conversations on the draft convention will be resumed to-morrow following a luncheon to be given at the Embassy in Paris by the British Ambassador, Lord Tyrrell. Sir John Simon and Captain Eden will take part in the conversations and will be joined by Mr Stanley Baldwin, who is at present in the French capital. The French Government representatives will be the Premier (M. Daladier) and M. Paul Boncour. A SIGNED AGREEMENT. DESIRE OF CABINET. » LONDON, Sept. 21. It is understood that the _ British Cabinet is strongly of opinion that every effort must be made to secure a signed disarmament agreement, even if the convention formerly visualised cannot be secured. The Government declines to believe that the supervision procedure will prove a barrier to an agreement. The original British proposal was that if any Government complained of a breach of the treaty by another Power, the Disarmament Commission should inquire into the matter on the spot. The French prefer a system of inquiry operating automatically without a specific charge being made. The Daily Telegra.ph’s political correspondent says it is not contemplated there should be no limit and that the commission should pry into every secret, but that a practical method shall be devised to see whether the convention is being kept or not. If France has a guarantee through impartial examination that the signatories observe the convention, then a better convention may be secured.