DISARMAMENT PROBLEM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21645, 16 May 1932, Page 7

DISARMAMENT PROBLEM

FOREIGN SECRETARY’S STATEMENT FRENCH PROPOSAL DISCUSSED (British Official Wireless.) (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—-Copyright.) RUGBY, May 13. The Foreign Secretary (Sir John Simon) made an important statement when disarmament was discussed in the House of Commons to-day. He said he shared the view that it was most important to combine quantitative disarmament with qualitative methods as a cross check. The object which qualitative disarmament put before them was, primarily, to outlaw the use of predominantly offensive weapons, to weaken attack at. the expense of defence, and to make it more difficult for an invader to deliver a knockout blow. They must endeavour to reach, not only quantitative, but qualitative disarmament. They were approaching, in conference, a discussion on the German thesis of security, and the French thesis of security. The German thesis was not only technical but, fundamentally, political. She said she entered the conference with equal status with everyone else, and this status issue was very important, for it raised the question on what basis were German, armaments to be in future.

Regarding the French memorandum proposing an internationalised force Sir John Simon said it seemed to him, and he thought he spoke for the Government, that, whatever might be said in Its favour, an international foe essentially involved an international commander, an international general staff, and an international cabinet. While it was perfectly true that all these would be international, none the less they had to remember that the individuals who composed the international general staff would not be international, but national. He thought that, probably, there were very serious difficulties to be analysed, because, after all, it was the essence of the work of an international general staff that it should set itself the hypothetical problem of defence. He did not know how they were going to deal with an international general staff’s plans, put together by eminent members of particular nations, with much hope > that the plans would remain secret until they were put into operation; or, indeed, that they could, without much reconsideration and modification, be worked out. They would have to decide what was the conception they embraced of the future of this immense international force. Did they conceive the League of Nations developing along the lines of an international police force or as growing in -strength and authority as the embodiment and expression of their increasingly sensitive and' powerful organ—namely, the organ of world opinion? He conceived that when a difficulty arose, either the public opinion of the world would be so deeply stirred and so clearly expressed that it would be overwhelming in effect or that an honest difference of view might arise,' in which it would be found exceedingly difficult to give an international police force consistent and intelligent direction. Sir John Simon concluded by defining the attitude he wished to take up and which the Government and the House of Commons should adopt as one of qualified optimism as regarded the result of the Disarmament Conference, but unqualified determination to pursue the good result to the end.

Mr Winston Churchill said the position of disarmament at Geneva was both disappointing and discreditable. All the nations were putting quantitative armaments at the maximum. AIT the diminutions in the naval forces were due lo economic pressure, and not to naval conferences. It would have been better if Britain and the United States had retained naval freedom. He pointed §ut the dangers of the theory that the German people should be equal in a military sense to France.