GENEVA GUARANTEES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 108, 6 April 1934, Page 7

GENEVA GUARANTEES

A DISTINCTION DRAWN

ANALYSIS OF RESULTS,

COMMENT IN PRESS.

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received April 6, 11.45 a.m. ' RUGBY, April 5.

Reviewing the outlook for disarmament, with particular reference to the Geneva Bureau meeting, the Times says the view is undoubtedly proving common that a distinction may and should bo made between giving a guarantee for the maintenance of the exact positions established by the peace treaties and giving a guarantee for the maintenance of a new international system based upon an armaments convention.

“A general guarantee of security must be directed to the crossing of a frontier or to some other act of overt aggression. There must almost inevitably be the difficulty of discussion as to whether the action of a State charged with aggression was or was not justified, and there may or may not be doubt whether in fact its action may properly be held to. have constituted aggression,” the paper adds. “In guaranteeing an armaments convention these doubts are unlikely to arise. Observance of agreed limitations is to be checked by a direct international commission and there will only be a ease for taking sanctions if the commission has definitely reported that a particular State has exceeded its permitted armaments. Furthermore, the presumption is that in the one case hostilities will already have broken out before collective action has to be taken, but infringement of an armaments convention would not be the same irreparable disaster. That alone is a convincing argument in favour of a guaranteed convention. _ ... “Another hardly less point in British eyes is that the convention would stand for a new and better system, whereas a general guarantee of security must inevitably be inseparable from the provisions of the peace treaties.”