DIPLOMATIC ACTIVITY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18273, 16 December 1933, Page 6

DIPLOMATIC ACTIVITY

IN EUROPEAN CAPITALS PACT OF NON-AGGRESSION BRITAIN\S ENDEAVORS (British Official Wireless.) Ren. 2 p.m. RUGBY, Dec. 15. Sir Eric Phipps, British Ambassador in Berlin, who returned to Loudon on a short visit, at the request of the Government for a consultation on the disarmament question and who had a long talk with >Sir John Simon, will he present at to-day’s meeting of the Cabinet committee on disarmament. Sir Erie Phipps recently had several conversations with Herr Hitler. M. Avenol, Secretary-General of the League of Nations, visited Mr. Stanley Baldwin this morning. He is lunching with Signor Grandi, and later will have a further conversation with Mr. Arthur Henderson. A leading article in the Times remarks that the immediate purpose of the present diplomatic activity in the various capitals and almost the sole purpose of Britain is to bring about a basis of negotiations between France and Germany, to which the Times thinks that a fresh pact of non-aggression might conceivably he a useful preparative. The Times continues: “Critics may argue that if pacts of non-aggression could secure European peace it is already secured one-hundred fold since most nations in Europe have actually signed a whole series of them, in addition to such major instruments as the Covenant of the League, the Kellogg Pact and the Treaty of Locarno. But tho answer is that in the first place war lias not been started again anywhere in Europe, with which these many treaties may have had something to do. In tlie second place, Herr Hitler is a revolutionary who lias broken with his party.

“A solemn pledgo by a leader who is known to bo a man of his word that ho would nob go to war with France could, in fact, hardly fail to pave the way to a better understanding between those two great countries, whoso present disagreement absolutely prevents tho conclusion of a general disarmament convention.” After an analysis of the causes of tho mutual Franco-German want of confidence, and in particular France’s anxiety regarding tho apparent determination of the German Government to impart intermediary military training to every citizen, tho Times argues that the real cause of apprehension of Germany’s neighbors must he not the existence of their voluntary and unarmed militia since conscription is general on the Continent, hut coincident with it of a highly trained long service professional army and the absence of any form of organised international control. It adds : “Both theso points are met in the draft convention. Herr Hitler’s Government had agreed to transform the professional Reichswehr into a short service army, and Germany had agreed, with other delegations at tho Disarmament Conference, to ah automatic investigation by an international commission. Both these extremely valuable points are in suspense so long as the draft convention remains inoperative. The moral is, ‘get hack to the draft convention.’ ”

The Times emphasises that a collective peace system with equal rights and international supervision offers the only hope of agreement and the only alternative to the dangers of unrestricted competition.