QUESTION OF DISARMAMENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20292, 28 December 1927, Page 13

QUESTION OF DISARMAMENT.

THE PREPARATORY COMMISSION. DEBATE IN THE LORDSWHY LORD CECIL RESIGNED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 19. Viscount Cecil of Chelwood’s speech was the chief feature in a debate in the House of Lords on the question of disarmament. Lord Parmoor called attention to the position at Geneva, and to questions of foreign policy, and moved for papers. He said he understood that Lord Cushendun (formerly Mr Ronald M‘Neill) would reply for the Government, and he congratulated the noble lord on his presence in that House. The last they met was on a League of Nations Lnion platform at Chelsea, and he recollected Lord Cushcndun’s sympathetic attitude on that occasion. On November 30 what is known as the Preparatory Commission for Disarmament is to meet again at Geneva, and it was in this that Lord Parmoor wished to know the Government’s attitude with reference to disarmament. He asked whether the Government was prepared to adopt the optional clause of the International Court of Tho Hague. He criticised the recent speech of the Foreign Secretary at the League, which he described as “ a cold blast.” oord Cushendun (Chancellor of the Duchy), addressing the House for the first time, said he was no half-hearted believer in the League of Nations. There was no difference in principle between Lord Parmoor and himself; they only differed on questions of method. As to the intentions of the Government, the questions put to him were premature, as no instructions had yet been given to our representatives at Geneva, and the most he could do was to give some indication of the factors which have to be taken into account. Sir Austen Chamberlain’s speech, which Lord Parmoor had described as a cold blast, was most useful for its purpose. H there was growing support for the Protocol it was not remarkable, for the Protocol secured to a large number of States doubtful about their neighbours the guarante© of British power. It involved, however, a degree of risk and commitment which he did not believe any British Government would accept. LORD CECILS EXPLANATION. Lord Cecil thereupon took occasion to explain the reasons for his resignation, which ho said he had not oeen allowed to vivo before. His reasons were cumulative. They started with th e rejection of the Treaty of Mutual Assistance by the Labour Government and of the Protocol by the Conservative Government. This rejection of a document which merited only amendment gave him the first inkling that his colleagues did not think in the same way as he did about disarmament. Ther e followed the establishment of the Preparatory Committee on Disarmament,-, for which the Committee of Imperial Defence prepared a draft treaty. Contrary to the suggestion of the Prime Minister, he had not drafted this treaty; on the contrary, he had expressed to the Cabinet his grave disappointment at it. At the meeting of the Preparatory Committee he was hampered by impossible instructions and by the unconcealed contempt of the Admiralt representatives for the work of the committee. The result was again disappointment, BRITISH GOVERNMENT'S OBSTINACY. He was persuaded to go to the CColidge conference because success seemed certain. To his surprise he found that lack of preparation had made it most doubtful. So soon as it became evident that the Americans meant by “ parity ” mathematical equality, and that the British delegation so accepted it, he became aware that a section of the Cabinet, headed by Mr Churchill, preferred the conference to fail rather than come to an agreement that they thought _ dangerous and would not even publish British adherence to a policy which envisaged a temporary agreement, upon the expiration of which full liberty on the question of parity should be resumed. The same section of the Cabinet later insisted on rigidity upon the question of the 6in gun in cruisers, and refused the compromise of a Tin gun. Later, again, they refused the American suggestion which, in effect, postponed the gun question to a later conference. He did not defend the American insistence on the Bin gun, but he could not defend the British Government’s obstinacy, in such violent contrast to lh e attitude of Japan, and so menacing to the prospect of disarmament agreements in general. He therefore resigned. He did not doubt the Government’s desire for peace, and would sup port its every effort towards that end. The justification for his belief bad already been given by Mr Bridgeman in the Commons in the announcement that only one cruiser, instead of three, vould be laid down this year. SPECIAL NEEDS OF THE EMPIRE. The Earl of Balfour (Lord president of the Council) said that he must frankly admit that even after Viscount Cecil’s explanation, he was wholly unable to understand how in the course of events in connection with the League of Nations ’could possibly justify the extreme course he had taken in resigning. Lord Cecil’s first quarrel was not with the present Government, but with their predecessors in office. He understood there was a controversy between Lord Cecil at Geneva and the Admiralty at home with regard to naval forces, in which apparently the Government took Lord Cecil’s part against the Admiralty advisers, except on one point, having to do, he believed, with non-com missioned officers. H e could not believe that this was of itself an adequate ground for quarrel. Coming to what he took was the dominant reason for Lord Cecil’s resignation, he found it difficult to follow him. The real point of difference between the American Government and ourselves—a fundamental, but he hoped and believed only a temporary, difference—was the refusal of the United States to give any consideration whatever to the special circumstances of the British Empire in regard to its commerce and its food supplies. While allowing full equality in regard to the fleets on which naval power ultimately rests, the British Government could not consent to any limitation of what they (ieeemd to be the small craf tnecessary, both for peace and war, to preserve oiir scattered Empire in security. How anyone could think that a ground on which any American need cherish resentment against its country passed his power of comprehension.