Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, FRIDAY, NOV. 24, 1933. GENEVA DISAPPOINTMENT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18254, 24 November 1933, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, FRIDAY, NOV. 24, 1933. GENEVA DISAPPOINTMENT

To the intense disappointment of all who have been looking to the conference on the shores of Geneva to produeo a definite contribution towards the world’s peace the Disarmament Conference has provided only negative results. It was not for want of preparation nor for tireless perseverance that it has failed so far to materialise an acceptable plan. Spade work for disarmament began immediately after the launching of the League Covenant in 1020 and in .1925

a commission was set up to arrange an agenda and make definite plans for the conference convened in February, 1932. For seven years preparatory committees were at work exploring the field of international negotiation and endeavoring to find paths that would lead to the much-desired goal. There have been constant comings and goings between the capitals of Europe, statesmen' and diplomats have engaged In many conversations, and problems associated with disarmament have received the fullest discussion in the respective Parliaments, on the platform, and in the press. Fervent petitions, signed by multitudes of people, have been sent to Geneva praying for the attainment of the supreme object, of beating spears into pruning hooks. Otten in the course of the eight years, when storm clouds deepened and crises threatened to wreck the conference, il has been hept in being mainly through the patience of leading statesmen and their realisation of the consequences of failure, and in this respect the British representatives played no inconspicuous part, acting as mediators between apparently irreconcilable elements and setting an example in luc lengths they were prepared to go to secure effective disarmament. YVhatcver happens ag the result of the failure of the Conference, if it does fail, British people will have no reason for self-reproach, for they have backed their responsible Ministers in every effort to secure reconciliation and good understanding between the discordant groups. Great Britain,

under the stimulating influence of Lord Cecil, has from the first been the principal bulwark of the League of Nations among the Great Powers. Concerned with world polities more perhaps than most nations because ot her world-wide Empire, her support to the ideals of the League has been steady and loyal. And notwithstanding the present disappointment she will, we are sure, continue to pursue those ideals. The difficulties of today consist, as Mr. Lloyd George said last month, in the fact that the nations of Europe to-day are not a League. Each is guarding his own backyard lest the bone be stolen. They are placing their trust not in their unity and common agreement but in their national defences ami in the cliques and alliances they form with and against each other. “Geneva and the League of Nations,’’ writes the Daily Telegraph’s special correspondent, “have been much criticised for the present state of Europe. A good deal of that criticism lias been unfair. On the other hand much of it has been entirely justified. Geneva is the embodiment of the conference idea —the public meeting with everyone at cross-purposes. If there is the least difficulty the Conference dissolves either into a number of investigating committees or else adjourns the matter sine die. This procedure has become practically customary. It is almost impossible to keep track of all the various committees and commissions which have been appointed to investigate every kind of problem. The tragedy of Geneva ami Geneva methods is the fact that nations arc unwilling to compromise. They start off with wonderful grandiloquent, speeches, lint when it becomes a matter of concessions, that is quite another story. It is then we reach the. adjourning stage, and the world public, buoyed up by a promising start in a discussion, is once more disappointed in its hopes.” The reason for all this vacillation, of course, is that the nations do not trust one another, and in this matter of distrust the international .situation has changed decidedly for the worse in the past year. The condition of mutual confidence* On which a disarmament treaty must bo based, if if is to

be effective, is almost completely lack-! ing in the world. ,And yet, despite failures to secure agreement and co-1 operative action, despite resignations, and defiance, the League must still stand as a restraining influence amongst the nations. If for tho time being there ig a tendency to rearm, no nation, no matter how well untied it may be, will not find it otherwise than dangerous to break the peace. The people of the world arc far more determined in their opposition to war than ever they were before. Any Government which took a step that might conceivably cause it to stumble into war would be sharply challenged by its own people, not even excepting tho Germans, we believe, who are being exhilirated for the moment by a Jot of bombastic military propaganda, but who are shrewd enough to think twice before committing themselves to the possibilities ol' another niilitarv defeat. The Germans would be mad to attack before they are at least better armed and if they do attempt to increase armaments the French would be justified under the Versailles treaty in imposing “sanctions.” This would not necessarily involve war—it would be more likely, as one writer puts it, to be a military promenade. Ifcoecupatioii of the Rhine appears to be the only way of curbing Ihe militant spirit which is at present disturbing tho peace of Europe.