CONCILIATORY DIPLOMACY

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1931, Page 7

CONCILIATORY DIPLOMACY

THE STAGE OF TRANSITION

OBLIGATIONS OF THE LEAGUE

ARBITRATION-DISARMAMENT

PACIFIC SETTLEMENT ACT

British Wireless. Rugby, April 24. Speaking to-night at the annual dinner of the Foreign Press Association, the Foreign Secretary, Mr? A. Henderson, said: “We are in a transition stage between the old individualistic diplomacy and the new diplomacy of conciliation and co-operation. Much is being done to reconstruct international relations on a better basis. The Government sets much store by arbitration and disarmament. It h&s sighed the optional clause, and 34 nations have now accepted this obligation. They have adhered to the general Act for Pacific Settlement.”

It was impossible to over-estimate the importance which the Government, and, he thought, all parties in Great Britain, attached to the success of the forthcoming disarmament conference, which would do more than any other single factor towards removing economic depression." A serene international atmosphere was one of the best guarantees of material prosperity. Happily in disarmament progress had been made. A draft scheme recently evolved at Geneva enabled the disarmament conference to open early next year. It was useless to pretend that the spirit of suspicion, distrust and insecurity which plagued the old diplomacy had been banished, added Mr. Henderson. He did not believe they could be banished unless the nations completed the work of disci, lament contemplated in the Versailles 'treaty and in Article 8 of the. League Covenant, and until the nations placed greater reliance upon the solemn obligations of the League.