GENEVA AND LAUSANNE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 16

GENEVA AND LAUSANNE

WORK OF CONFERENCES DOMINION'S REPRESENTATION HIGH COMMISSIONER'S VIEWS [from our own correspondent] LONDON. Aug. ID The High Commissioner, Sir Thomas Wilford, who lately returned from Geneva, lias given some of his impressions of the two great conferences. He went on June 8 in order to attend the Disarmament Conference, and, later, the Lausanne Conference. " As the Disarmament Conference was sitting continually from the time of my arrival," said Sir Thomas Wilford, " I made by headquarters at Geneva, journeying to Lausanne when required by the British delegation to attend any conferences, which sometimes was three times in one clay, and sometimes once a day, and occasionally I was not required there at all. " I would like to tell tho people in New Zealand that the old regime of informing the New Zealand representative and not consulting him is past, and that no step was taken either at Geneva or Lausanne by the British delegation without first placing the proposal before the representatives of the Dominions, and after a free and open discussion on the proposals and coming to a decision before carrying on that conference. Numerous Coherences " I found after a week at Lausanne that with only two of us it was impossible to attend every conference called by the Ministers at Geneva and Lausanne as well, and after two weeks I got Mr. E. Toms, the head of the financial department of the High Commissioner's office, to come and help us. When it is remembered that Great Britain had 75 representatives, including staff and experts, at Lausanne, and 80 at Geneva, we had to be very much allive to answer the call when Ministers wanted us for consultation. Australia had representatives both at Lausanne and Geneva. It will be seen, therefore, that we did our work with the minimum of expense. " It can be understood that it is perhaps easier to obtain an agreement at a conference like that at Lausanne, where six nations are primarily concerned with the business in hand. In Geneva there are 64 nations to be brought into ono line of thought before any substantial advance can be made. Difficulties are unbelievable. The outlook of the representatives of, say, the American States, seems to be entirely different from that of the majority of other representatives in many important respects. End of Term Approaching " The Disarmament Conference is going to be a very long journey. It is not going to sit again until January, and, as my term of office ends in December, it will, of course, be someone else's privilege to represent New Zealand then. But with tho experience that I have had as Vice-President of the Disarmament Committee oii the League of Nations and of these conferences, I should say that with patience and persistence, and a determination never to be upslet by apparently insurmountable obstacles, a big move forward can be made in regard to disarmament, and that when one understands that the nations of the world are spending £IOOO a minute, or £600,000,000 a year, on armaments and all that pertains thereto, the time is not wasted."