PEACE BARRIER

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1933, Page 5

PEACE BARRIER

FRANCO-GERMAN TENSION

ANOTHER PACT SUGGESTED

BRITAIN’S CHIEF PURPOSE

VALUE OF SOLEMN PLEDGE

PROMISES OF HERR HITLER

British Wireless. Rugby, Dec. 15. Sir Eric Phipps, British Ambassador at Berlin, who returned to London, on a short visit at the request of the Governmeift for a consultation on the disarmament question, and who had a long talk with Sir John Simon, Foreign Secretary, will be present at to-day’s meeting of the Cabinet committee on disarmament. Sir Eric recently had several conversations with Herr Hitler. M. Avenol visited Mr. Stanley Baldwin this morning. He is lunching with Signor Grandi, Italian Ambassador, and later will have further conversations with Mr. Arthur Henderson, President of the Disarmament Conference. 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 a fresh pact of non-aggression might conceivably be useful, says the Times in a leading article. The article continues: “Cynics may argue that if pacts of non-aggression could secure European peace it must already have been secured a hundredfold, since most of the nations of 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 the answer is that in the first place war has not been started again anywhere in Europe, with which these many treaties may have had something to do. In the second place, Herr Hitler is a revolutionary who has broken with the party. “A solemn pledge by a leader who is known to be a man of his word that he would not go to war with France could, in fact, hardly fail to pave the way to a better understanding between two great countries whose present disagreement absolutely prevents the conclusion of a general disarmament convention after an analysis of the causes of the mutual Franco-German want of confidence and, in particular, France’s anxiety regarding the apparent determination of the German Government to impart intermediary military training to every citizen. REAL CAUSE OF APPREHENSION. “The real cause df the apprehension of Germany’s neighbours must be not the existence of their voluntary and unarmed militia, since conscription is general on the Continent, but, coincident with it, a highly trained, long-service professional army and the absence of any form of organised international control. Both these 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 the Disarmament Conference to an automatic investigation by an international commission. Both these extremely valuable points are in suspense so long as the draft convention remains in operation. The moral is, “Get back 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.

OFFER BY HITLER REPORTED.

PACT WITH NEIGHBOUR STATES.

By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright Rec. 7 p.m. , London, Dec. 16. It appears that information brought to London by Sir Eric Phipps suggests that Herr Hitler offers to conclude with each of Germany’s neighbour states,a tenyears’ pact of mutual non-aggression and is also ready to endorse the principle of sanctions against any peace-breaker and the elimination of the war spirit from the school curricula, provided other countries do the same, says a diplomatic, correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. A Paris message states that M. Benes in a long conference with M. Paul-Bon-cour agreed on no separate conversations with Germany, non-acceptance of any plan of German rearmament, disapproval of any reform of the League of Nations which would weaken the equality of nations, or in other words would weaken the solid bloc France sways at the League.