SOME DISAPPOINTMENT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 40, 17 February 1930, Page 9

SOME DISAPPOINTMENT

HENDERSON EXPLAINS

BRITISH GOVERNMENT

HOPEFUL

British Official Wireless. (Received 17th February, 11 a.m.)

BUGBY, ltith February.

Referring, to the proceedings at the Naval Conference during a speech at Birkenhead yesterday, the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Henderson, said that the delegates wore'now deep in detail and directly confronted with difficulties that had to be solved. The decision naturally came slowly, and there ha 4 been some public disappointment, but such incidents were connected with every international conference. What was more important was the manner in which the difficulties had been approached. The British Government believed that the peoples of the respective countries were entitled to ask for and to receive a substantial reduction in armament burdens, and every delegation to the Conference was convinced that agreement was essential to the vital needs of the nation it represented. The abolition of the submarine had already been discussed, and it was found that whereas at the Washington Conference nine years ago Britain alone favoured its abolition, other nations had now moved towards that viewpoint. If events proved that the Conference was unable to come to such au agreement, the movement for stringent limitation and eventual abolition of such craft would have received a powerful impetus. The same might safely be said of the monster capita! ships which now constituted so great a part of the burden of naval armaments. The British Government, in declaring plainly that it desired an all-round reduction of captial ships, had been inspired by the hope that in the near future it might become possible to abolish them altogether.