THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 1927. THE PATH TO PEACE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19608, 9 April 1927, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 1927. THE PATH TO PEACE.

Gkeat importance attaches to the work being done by the Preparatory Commission on Disarmament at Geneva. To those who despair of war's abolition or restraint it may seem like crying for the moon to devote long sessions to the technical questions being there discussed. Human nature, these pessimists say, cannot bo altered. The combative element cannot be eradicated. Therefore, war is inevitable, and means to avert it foredoomed to failure. To others, sanguine of universal peace and prone to expect a miraculous change in human nature making universal fraternity a thing likely to come suddenly overnight, these same long sessions may seem equally a waste of time. They build their hopes on quixotic national gestures, and think that if one great Power should resolve to sink its ships, demobilise its army and abolish submarines and aircraft at one swoop, all the other Powers would do the same. In that way, they think, the thing would be done. Between these two extremes, alike unpractical, the great body of opinion moves. It does not despair of human nature's change for the better, but it knows the process must be slow, and would see consequently a programme pursued that is not too far ahead of possible achievement to be reasonably attempted. The road to peace, it is well aware, is long and difficult, but it believes that it can be taken step by step with little risk of stumbling. This union of hope and common sense is exemplified in the commission's, work, de- j signed to promote international agreement on the limitation of arms. It is facing resolutely the enormous difficulties in the way. Were it to blink them, it might as well go out of business, while its magnifying them as insuperable would be no useful service. It is doing its job quite as well as reasonable people have expected.

There have been delicate situations, even tense moments. M. Boncour has been a little chagrined -at; the British delegation's

recourse to further instructions from its Government. The suspicion of private negotiations between Lord Cecil and M. Boncour has nettled a representative of a third Power. Between widely opposed points of view on actual issues there has been at times a sharp cleavage. But none of these things has been allowed to stay the endeavour to come to an understanding. In this general fact lies the hope of an ultimate success sufficient to carry the investigation to a point where an authoritative Peace Conference can propound a policy for Governments to ratify. The will to peace has not faltered, although the way to it is beset with problems and even perils. Lord Cecil gave last November a review of the work of the commission up to that time. No direct practical steps had been taken, he admitted, toward general disarmament, until the French proposition in 1925 of this preparatory commission. At once, however, the position had changed. The meeting of experts at a round table of the Powers had resulted in a thoroughly businesslike examination of the issues at stake. Disarmament had been definitely put "on the map." He bore witness to two significant facts: there had not been the slightest attempt to obstruct progress, and the discussions had shown that, while difficult to achieve, disarmament was practic able. " Some said," he attested, " it would be better done in this way; others argued for another way; but none of them said it could not be done at all." As the sessions have been resumed this year, the same high resolve has been manifest. There is bound to be more pronounced difference of opinion as discussions become more and more detailed. This has been found in the naval issue, which America's recent proposal for a separate conference, in continuation -of the . famous Washing,nr. assembly, and limited to maritime questions, took for granted would be simpler than a comprehensive revie>w of all armaments. But there is reason to hope that in this, as has happened in the broad inquiry into land armaments, a workable agreement on technical questions may be reached.

Three conditions, as Lord Cecil has insisted, are essential to success. First, peoples and Governments must be in earnest; second, there must not be undue hurry; and, third, each country should say clearly what armaments it deemed necessary for its defence, so that the preparatory commission would be able to formulate a de finite scheme for the consideration of the projected conference. Every one of these conditions has been fulfilled in the commission's work as far as it has gone. Never before has there been such ihdisput-

able earnestness about the, object in view. The maintenance of general goodwill, in spite of momentary misunderstandings and the more evident because of them, has been an impressive fact. There has been also a determination to survey patiently even remote details. Thoroughness, rather than speed, has been taken as an axiomatic principle of inquiry. As for the utterance of each country's opinion of its own necessities, there has been a frankness that would have amazed the diplomats of a generation ago. Amid the tangle of . competing opinions and very diverse needs it may, on occasion, have seemed to onlookers impossible to find a basis of agreement. But it has been found in some directions, and there is a determination to find it in others. The broad fact is that the path to peace is being cleared of its thicket of undergrowth and the making of a highway surely facilitated.