CONFERENCE OF NATIONS

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1932, Page 7

CONFERENCE OF NATIONS

ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES

NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE

BRITISH MINISTERS’ VISIT

LAUSANNE PREPARATIONS

British Wireless. Rugby, June S. The Prime Minister (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) and the Foreign Secretary (Sir John Simon) on Saturday will proceed to Paris, where they will have conversations with the French Prime Minister (M. Herriot). On Monday they will probably leave for Geneva before proceeding to Lausanne. M. Herriot’s declaration of policy was well received by the British Press. The Herriot Ministry’s declaration says the Government will do everything in its power to contribute towards political easement, economic understanding and moral disarmament. Although it cannot allow reparations to be contested it is ready to discuss any projects and take any initiative leading to greater world stability or honest, peaceful re conciliation.

It adds that within the framework of the League Covenant and the Kellogg Pact and the essential principles of M. Briand’s policy, the Government favours all solutions, even partial disarmament which, without compromising the national security, will allow a reduction in military expenditure and mark a step towards progressive, simultaneous and controlled disarmament. PROSPECT OF AGREEMENT. The Times says: “Read together with the Statement by the German Foreign Minister on Monday M. Herriot’s speech improves the prospect that an agreement will bo reached at Lausanne if each participant will make its separate contribution to the concession and goodwill which are necessary conditions of common recovery. A firm arrangement should even now be achieved.”

"A great point about M. Herriot’s declaration is that it leaves all the doors open,” says the News-Chronicle. “It is a frank offer to discuss in a spirit of goodwill any projects, and even to take any initiative subject to certain reservations which nobody would challenge.” In addition to the prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary other British Ministers at Lausanne will include the Chancellor (Mr. Neville Chamberlain), the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Walter Runciman) and the Home Secretary (Sir Herbert Samuel). A Foreign Office communique states that M. Herriot has addressed to the British Government a proposal for preliminary conversations before the opening of Lausanne conference on Thursday. The Sun understands that the British Government is anxious that Mr. J. G. Latham (Australian Attorney-General) should remain in connection with the important international developments imminent and possibly necessitating his return to Switzerland early next week. Mr. Latham said he could not discuss the situation.

It has been known for a considerable time that the British Government is greatly pertu'rbed at the rapid worsening of events in Europe with a threatened breakdown at the disarmament and Lausanne conferences. Mr. MacDonald, during his convalescence, prepared what constitutes Britain’s last desper; ate effort to save the conferences.