AT NAVAL CONFERENCE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 46, 24 February 1930, Page 9

AT NAVAL CONFERENCE

CONTINUITY ASSURED

BRIAND AND CO-DELEGATES

British Official Wireless. \ (Received 24th February, 11 a.m.) RUGBY, 22nd February. The French Prime Minister, M,

Chautemps, completed his Cabinet last, night, and presented the new Ministers to the President. The new Government will meet the Chamber on Tuesday, and it is anticipated that the delegaiton-to the Naval Conference will leave for London on Wednesday. ■ s' The Minister for Foreign Affairs, M.. Aristide Briand. will head the delegation which, as before, will comprise tho Ministers for Marine and Colonies. The new holders of these offices are MM. Sarraut and Famoureux. It was stated by the Prime Minister that the Government would take the necessary steps to assure a continuity of policy at the London Conference. SUBMARINE QUESTION. . . Until the arrival .of the French delegates the Conference stands adjourned. The only progress' that has been possible in the interval is a preliminary survey of certain aspects of the submarine question, which havo been referred to legal experts. Speeches mado at the plenary session indicated a strong desiro on the part of all the delegations to do what was possible to humanise the use of submarines. No question of limitation of size of vessels is before these experts, who had a further informal meeting yesterday when the Root Convention, signed at Washington in 1922, which, owing to non-ratification by France, never came into-operation., was taken as the starting point for their review. ROOT CONVENTION. The Convention declared that, belligerent submarines are, not in any eireumstaiices exempt from the rules applicable to ; surface vessels, and that any submarine commander ,who violates any of these rules should be liable to trial and punishment for an act of piracy, and that prohibition of the use of submarines as commei'ee-destroyers should bo universally accepted as part of the law of nations in view of the practical impossibility of using them in this way and at the same time giving due protection to the lives of neutrals and non-combatants. >y

. Tho legal experts are now considering whether any modification of these principles is considered desirable. '