THE ARMAMENTS RACE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22022, 3 August 1933, Page 9

THE ARMAMENTS RACE

SENSELESS COMPETITION COMMENT BY THE TIMES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, August 1. Commenting on Mr Henderson’s decision to stand as a Labour candidate for Clay Cross, The Times says: “ What matters is the extent to which a return to party business will affect his task as president of the Disarmament Conference. Mr Henderson has just returned from a tour of Paris, Rome, Berlin, and Prague to discuss disarmament, and gained the conviction that every Government desires a working arrangement by which the nations shall be spared senseless competition in weapons of destruction as oppressive for national budgets and as damaging to international confidence. Europe is still distracted by the rights of France and the wrongs of Germany, but all are agreed that some limit to armaments is better than no limit, that control of the private manufacture of arms is desirable, that a system of supervision must be established, that a permanent Disarmament Commission is necessary for the purpose, and that air bombing should be banned as an instrument of warfare between civilised nations. Meanwhile one country after another has shown readiness to make concessions. These are objects for which the General Commission can continue to work. Mr Henderson has in mind further tours of European capitals in September as a necessary preliminary to the meeting of the General Commission at Geneva on October 16.