DISARMAMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20273, 6 April 1934, Page 7

DISARMAMENT.

Convention Instead of Security. NEWSPAPER SUPPORT. British Official Wireless. (Received April 6, 12.55 p.m.) RUGBY, April 5. Reviewing the outlook for disarmament, with particular reference to the meeting of the Bureau at Geneva, the “Times” says: “The view is undoubtedly proving common that a distinction may, and should, be made between giving a guarantee for the maintenance of the exact positions established by the Peace Treaties and giving a guarantee for the maintenance of a new international system based upon an Armaments Convention. “ A general guarantee of security must be directed to the crossing of a frontier, or to some other act of overt aggression, and there may, or may not, be doubt whether in fact its action may properly be held to have constituted aggression. In guaranteeing an Armaments Convention these doubts are likely to arise. “ The observanace of agreed limitations would be checked by an International Commission, and there would only be a case for taking sanctions if the Commission definitely reported that a particular State had exceeded its permitted armaments. Furthermore. the presumption is that in the one case hostilities will already have broken out before collective action has been taken, but infringement of an Armaments Convention would not be the same irreparable disaster. That alone is a convincing argument in favour of a Guaranteed Convention. “ Another hardly less important point in British eyes is that a Convention would stand for a new and better S3 r stem, whereas a general guarantee of security must inevitably be insperable from the provisions of the Peace Treaties.”