GERMAN REARMAMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21328, 1 November 1932, Page 9

GERMAN REARMAMENT

FRESH FEARS AROUSED FRENCH PREMIER'S PLAN WORLD DANGER VISUALISED By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received October 31, 0.55 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 31 The Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian says the disarmament plan proposed by the French Prime Minister, M. Herriot, would make Germany the greatest military power in Europe. The proposed militia could only be raised by conscription. The abolition of the Reichswehr would not be real for it would be incorporated in the militia, thus reestablishing the old military cast-e in a new form. " To anyone who is acquainted with the frightful explosive antagonisms in Europe to-day," jays the correspondent, " the idea of M. Harriot's international forco seems fantastic. Germany, with a militia of which the 'abolished' Reichswehr would be the nucleus, would be relatively as formidable as in 1914 and be able to defy the world's peace organisation." The Geneva correspondent of the Guardian says the plan has intensely disappointed League of Nations circles, for it is feared that it means the rearmament of Germany. It is considered that the restoration of conscription, even in a limited form, would mean disaster to Germany and the world.

BRITAIN'S POSITION

MORE RIGID OBLIGATIONS M. HERRIOT'S OPTIMISM (Received October 31, 8.35 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 31 The Daily Telegraph's diplomatic writer says M. Herriot's scheme is highly complicated. Front the British standpoint the most serious matter is that the French plan would render more rigid Britain's obligations under Article XVI. of the League Covenant and the Rhineland and Locarno Pacts. The basic idea of the French plan is to reduce all Continental armies to the status of militias for purely defensive purposes, with a small body 'of trained soldiers to fcrm part of a collective force for the repression of aggression. A message from Paris states that M. Herriot, speaking at Poitiers on his way to Spain, saicl he believed there vas good ground for the hope that the new French disarmament plan would prove a rallying point for all courageous minds.