USE OF FOUR POWER PAST

Taranaki Daily News, 21 October 1933, Page 7

USE OF FOUR POWER PAST

MR. HENDERSON AGAINST IT WOULD INCREASE SUSPICION x ______ POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN ENDORSED BY MINISTER By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 7.5 p.m. London, Oct. 20. Mr. Arthur Henderson, chairman of the Disarmament Conference, questioned at Geneva whether in view of Germany’s withdrawal from the Conference use should be made of the Four Power Pact, said that although it could be valuable to facilitate agreements within the League, any attempts to substitute it for the Disarmament Conference would have a disturbing influence on the delegations, would increase suspicion considerably, and injure both the conference and the pact. . The German Government has officially noticed the League of its withdrawal, states a Berlin message. The policy of the British Government with regard to disarmament as outlined by Sir John Simon was warmly endorsed by Lord Hailsham, Minister of War, at Liverpool. He strongly emphasised that the speech represented the collective views of the British Government. Lord Hailsham added that Sir John Simon and Captain R. A. Eden had not only communicated to their colleagues everything that happened during the conversations with the interested Powers, but actually came home and had discussions upon the points which arise. “Britain had only one desire,” said Lord Hailsham. “She desired world peace and that security which world peace required for its permanence. That was her only purpose and her only object.” Mr. George Lansbury, broadcasting, expressed Labour’s sincere hope that the Disarmament Conference would continue until the common people of all lands were satisfied. The Allies’ persistent refusal to honour the 1919 pledge had created the present situation. The Daily Mail in a leading article still urges the permanent closure of the Disarmament Conference and the strengthening of the position of France, whose available recruits, owing to fewer births in wartime, will fall from the present 240.000 to 150,000 in 1935 and to 100,000 in 1936.

France, says the Mail, should construct Impenetrable fortifications from the Belgian frontier to the Alps and increase her air fleet, while a defensive Anglo-French alliance might supersede the Locarno Pact. After this Britain and France could extend the hand of friendship to a new Germany, vzhose claim to equal armaments should be conceded soon since a refusal of equality must involve an Anglo-French occupation of the Rhine.