ARMAMENTS PROBLEM

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17956, 7 December 1932, Page 11

ARMAMENTS PROBLEM

GENEVA CONVERSATIONS SOME PROGRESS MADE OBSTACLES OVERCOME (British Official Wireless.) Rec. 3 p.m. RUGBY, Dec. 6. ju Geneva to-day, five-Power conversations took place, mainly, it. is understood, oil ihe basis of the memorandum put forward by Air. Norman Davis. Tile main feature of its proposal are provision for an immediate convention to run until 1936. when the naval agreement now in force expires, Ibis document to embody, inter alia, formal recognition of Germany’s right to anus equality and France’s right to security, both to lie worked out within the next three, years, and provisions regarding the limitation of land gun calibres, the size pf tanks, a 33 1-3 per cent, reduction in effectives, the abolition of air bombing, gas, germ. and flame warfare, and the adhesion of France and Italy to the Loudon Naval Treaty.

It is understood that the German Foreign Minister regards the proposal as unacceptable in its present form, and that M. Harriot also is critical.

Geneva reports state that good progress was made at yesterday’s conversations, and it is stated that a tentative agreement between the British, American, French, and Italian delegates was reached on the American plan, providing a basis for an immediate convention. If the proposal is adopted the. measure of agreement reached after the work of the Disarmament Conference _ bureau during the year will be embodied in a convention that would run until 1936, when the naval agreements now in force expire. A practical application of the principles of the convention will .he worked out by a permanent commission, which, apparently would have the same constitution as the existing general committee of the Disarmament Conference, all nations being represented by a permanent delegate. The permanent coinmission would also prepare the way for a new conference, in three years’ time. The Times, commenting on the Geneva development, agrees that ardent advocates of far-reaching reductions regard the results to be obtained on the present record of the conference as meagre indeed. It points out that the only hostile votes given against the July resolution were those of Germany and Russia, but both dissented because it did not go far enough. Over forty States subscribed to the contents of the resolution by which it. was agreed all heavy land artillery, in respect to mount and calibre, should be limited : that the maximum unit tonnage of tanks should similarly be limited ;■ all chemical and incendiary warfare abolished ; all _ air attacks against civilian populations absolutely proli i bited. The Times says that in the aggregate these self-imposed restrictions mark a definite acceptance by all the signatory nations of the principle of limitation, which so far only applies on land to countries vanquished in the war, and on the sea, by their own deliberate act, to the five principle naval Powers. Its extension would at least constitute a most favorable base from which an advance could later be made to substantia) allround reductions.