EMBARGO ON ARMS TRAFFIC

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21845, 6 July 1934, Page 10

EMBARGO ON ARMS TRAFFIC

The terms of the British Government's letter to the League on the question of supplying armament material to the belligerents in the Gran Chaco are to be wholeheartedly approved. They express an iron determination to observe the proposed international embargo. It may seem to some that the request of the Government of Paraguay was innocuous: all that was requested was a licence by the British Government for the sale to Paraguay of two aeroplanes for purely ambulance purposes. But the embargo is plainly meant to cover the supply of aircraft of all types, doubtless because it is practicable to transform, all too easily, machines built for peace service into bombers of considerable fighting value. In any case, the wording of the embargo is explicit, and the only honourable course, if it is to have adequate British observance, was the one taken. To make this reply public by the transmission of its terms to the SecretaryGeneral of the League, which amounts to a registration of the refusal, is to declare the British position in a way that should encourage other nations to act similarly. As an evidence of British good faith the refusal is impressive. It should carry some distance the larger question of a general embargo on supplying arms and munitions to warring countries. This halts for lack of complete agreement, and the difficulties in the way are by no means negligible. The Gran Chaco conflict furnishes a useful test case, and the definiteness of the British stand should serve to bring others into line on the wider project as well as on this. They cannot, at all events, miss the express import of this particular refusal, declared to be made in the hope that all nations concerned will take the same stand.