WORLD DISARMAMENT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18313, 3 February 1934, Page 8

WORLD DISARMAMENT

FOUR CASES STATED COMMENT IN LONDON PROBLEM OF AIRCRAFT (British Official Wireless.) Roc. 2 p.m. RUGBY, Fob. 2. To the British and Italian proposals for disarmament at present under consideration by the Governments of the world has now been added a French memorandum on the subject, which was handed to the German Government on Monday and is now published. All the four principal European countries have thus put forward ideas on the subject, and it is notablo that despite the difference in the many viewpoints expressed, there is at least a common recognition of the paramount importance to the peace of the world of an agreement which will avoid the almost inevitable catastrophic consequences of an armaments race. Another underlying consideration is the economic and social consequences of the vast and wasteful expenditure which might follow failure to reach an armaments convention.

It is noted in London that particular attention is devoted in some quarters to the British proposals regarding air armaments. The British Government repeatedly has emphasised the importance of this aspect of the problem, and the memorandum recognises that these may prove the most potent military weapons in the possession of mankind. Article 35 of the British draft convention required that the permanent disarmament commission should work out schemes for the total elimination of military and naval aircraft, dependent on the effective supervision of civil aircraft. It now proposes that if the commission has not decided on abolition at the end of two years, all countries should be entitled to possess military aircraft.

The memorandum remarks that in the British Government’s view “it would be prejudicial to the prospects of the inquiry that any pavtv not hitherto entitled to possess military aircraft should claim such possession pending the results of the inquiry. At the same time it frankly recognises that Germany and other States not at present entitled to military aircraft could not be asked to postpone for long their claim.” The proposal puts a term to a discussion which might have been much prolonged. The memorandum suggests that Germany, in the interim, should be entitled to possess anti-aircraft guns.