INTERNATIONAL WAR CHEST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19503, 6 December 1926, Page 11

INTERNATIONAL WAR CHEST

j . PROPOSAL BY FINLAND. AID FOR SMALLER STATES. CONSIDERATION AT GENEVA. LONDON PRESS SURPRISED. By Telegraph—Press* Association—.Copyright. (Received 5.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z. LONDON. Dee. E. The Council of the League of Nations will commence a session at Geneva tomorrow. Among the foremost questions to be dealt with will be a Finnish proposal for an international war chest to be placed at the disposal of any nation which may be threatened with war. The tentative suggestion is that Britain and the other great Powers should undertake, in the event of one of the member States being the victim of aggression, to provide an immediate loan up to, say, £50,000,000, each. Power to promise to find £10,000,000. Each Government would guarantee the share raised by its bankers. According to the Finnish proposal this would avoid the necessity for exposed States, such as those along the Russian frontier, to maintain heavy armaments and munition factories. A sub-committee of the Council yesterday decided to instruct the Finance Committee to examine the Finnish proposal and all analogous measures. The representative of Finland thanked the members for the interest *they had shown in the question. The diplomatic correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says he regards this proposal to implement Article 6 of the Covenant of the League as amazing. It means, he says, that the British taxpayer would bo required to repay a loan from which only a foreign country or armament firms would benefit. As was known by past experience war loans made by Britain, even to the ricliost countries, could not be recovered. Moreover, says the correspondent, once Britain were to start financing such operations she must go on. Finally, the proposal would tend to make smaller countries unreasonably sensitive and bellicose. The diplomatic correspondent of the Sunday Express mentions as an astonishing fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Winston Churchill, authorised the British representatives on the Finance Committee of the League to consider the question of granting war credits up to £10,000,000 under the Finnish proposal. The correspondent says Mr. Churchill may argue that this amount will he the real maximum and that moreover it may never be required, and that in any case it will not be given unless the other Powers agree to make similar advances. But it is not clear how the money, once it has been given, will be recovered and from what source. '