The Waikato Times. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1933. THE RACE IN ARMAMENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19054, 19 September 1933, Page 4

The Waikato Times. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1933. THE RACE IN ARMAMENTS.

The most important event on the international horizon is the resumption this week of the sittings of the Disarmament Conference. The chief feature of the preliminary negotiations entered into by Britain on this occasion is the endeavour to arrive at some understanding with France. During the'previous sittings of the Conference earlier this year, British diplomacy was exercised in attempting to heal the breach between France and Italy, and it has been almost entirely due to the consistent policy pursued by Mr Arthur Henderson, as Chairman of the Conference, and Sir John Simon, the head of the British delegation, that the co-operation of Germany was in any way achieved.

The question which occupies the greatest prominence at the present time is whether France can be persuaded, in view of her intense fear of German aggression, to entertain any proposals for effective disarmament. The French point of view is that France will not agree to tho slightest diminution of her armed forces at present. If it is shown that Germany is not secretly re-arming, and if universal international control is accepted by the Conference, France is prepared to make “large reductions”; but she will wait five years in order to test the sincerity of Germany.

It is highly improbable that such a point of view will receive any sympathetic attention in Germany. In fact the suggestion that France will remain fully armed for five years deals a severe blow at any prospect of effective action. Her attitude is far too arbitrary, and in the present temper of Germany, is likely to wreck the Conference unless th,e British overtures result in a substantial modification of French demands..

If universal international control of armaments is agreed upon by the Conference, that should be sufficient for France, without reserving unto herself the right to wait five years in order to test the professions of Germany. Although she has been loud in her denunciation of other countries as harbouring the menace of agression, France has, ever since the war, been the pacemaker in .the armaments race. Her attitude on the question of security and possible invasion has been a continued source of annoyance to Germany, and if the latter is innocent of any secret efforts to re-arm, she has every reason to resent the incessant and intolerable pinpricking which France has administered.

The spirit of disarmament is surely lacking in a nation which, while possessing the strongest armaments in Europe, impedes the progress of the cause by her insensate demands for guarantees against the indefinite probability of future German aggression. If this is the attitude of one member of the Conference, it would be better that the Conference should never be resumed, until individual nations should at last succeed in grouping themselves into some form which ma3 7 enable a more general and more unselfish point of view to be put forward. __________________