Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1931. BRITAIN AND DISARMAMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 84, 6 October 1931, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1931. BRITAIN AND DISARMAMENT

The.Rev.' Dr. Gibb, who, as chairman of the Dominion Executive of ihe New Zealand League of Nations Union, presided at the Disarmament meeting in the Town Hall last night, did well to remove at the outset a misconception which has supplied the only possible ground for opposition to the object of ihe meeting. The resolution, identical with that submitted to the great Albeit Hall meeting on which this meeting was modelled, was simple and unexceptionable.

That this meeting warmly welcomes the forthcoming Disarmament Conference and urges the Government to do all in its power to bring about a real reduction in the armies, navies, and air forces of the world.

Such a resolution is, on the face of it, one to which no reasonable objection can be taken, but the pacifist auspices under which it is inevitable that disarmament should be most enthusiastically advocated have supplied some people with a reason, and others with an excuse, for supposing that there is something more at the back of the movement than meets the eye. This suspicion was repudiated by the chairman yesterday with an emphasis which carries all the greater weight because he is himself a pacifist. ' He (Dr. Gibb) desired to remove an impression that when they advocated disarmament they expected -Britain to disarm to the lowest possible minimum whilo other nations were armed to the teeth. Proportional disarmament was the object of tho meeting. He considered that the conference next year would spell lifo or death for tho civilisation of the world.

Thus stated, the object of the meeting is seen to be as free from cavil as the entirely unobjectionable resolution which was submitted to it. "Proportional disarmament," which really means proportional reduction of armaments, is a policy which we should all be able to unite in supporting, and it is the only kind of disarmament which the League of Nations and the League of Nations Unions have ever advocated. Even the pacifist, who will ultimately be satisfied with nothing less than a 100 per cent, reduction of armaments, must surely recognise that to get the Disarmament Conference to agree to a 25 per cent, reduction would represent an immense advance. Even the die-hard who thinks, and in our opinion has good grounds'for thinking,, that Britain has carried her policy of unilateral reduction too far already, should be able to see that a proportional all-round reduc- \ lion of armaments would not increase her disadvantage, but would relieve her of a great economic burden with- i out further weakening her security. We may concede to the militarists, if there are any such people in the British Empire, that Britain would have been in a much better position in respect both of security and of bargaining for reduction if she had riot been in such a hurry to reduce unconditionally. In a sense, therefore, she will not start from scratch when the Disarmament Conference opens in February, but for all that it will be just as much in her interest and as in that of any other Power if a general reduction can be arranged, and it would be suicidal perversity not to recognise the fact. So far* however, is Britain from the possibility, under any Government, of an attitude which would wreck the Disarmament Conference that all its hopes of success are centred in her. Officially Mr. Mac Donald and Mr. Henderson, and unofficially Lord Cecil, have been the most powerful advocates that the Conference has had, and probably the most unfortunate result of the change of Government in Britain would be realised if it were to disqualify Mr. Henderson for the Chairmanship to which he has been unanimously elected. For the immediate purpose of conferring with M. Laval on the currency and other financial problems, Lord Reading will doubtless prove a far more efficient negotiator ill an Mr. Henderson would have been, but lack of time would alone suffice to prevent his acquiring before the Conference meets anything like the strong personal ascendancy that Mr. Henderson had established at Geneva. It may, however, be hoped that Mr. Mac Donald with" his unrivalled genius for Conferences will bo present, even though it be not in the chair, and oddly enough, if his Government should be upset, Mr. Henderson is likely to be his successor. The chances are therefore that, whatever happens, Britain will supply the Disarmament Conference with its leading delegate.

Regardless of official changes, Lord Cecil's presence at the Disarmament Conference may, we trust, be considered to be assured. Nobody has in season and out of season, in office and out of office, argued the case for disarmament more persistently than he, nobody has a firmer grip of all its essentials, and no unofficial personage is more badly needed at the Conference. In a powerful letler which was published

in March last, Lord Cecil claimed urgency and almost desperate urgency for the case on more specific grounds than those which found most "favour in the Town Hall last night. He admitted that disarmament was desirable on many grounds, economic, political, and social, but he denied that any of these grounds had acquired any greater urgency than before. If he might now be inclined to make an exception in favour ot the economic grounds, the special ground which he emphasised has also been strengthened since his letter was written.

Tlio consideration that forces us to dctinito and immediate action is, says Lord Cecil, "scrupulous respect _ for treaty obligations." The pledge originally given by M. Clemenceau on behalf of the Allied and Associated Powers, reinforced by Article 8 of the various treaties of peace, repeated in tho /inal article of the Locarno treaties, and constantly reiterated, in resolutions and declarations in tho Assembly of the League of Nations, still awaits fulfilment. It is chiefly to give effect to those pledges that, after prolonged preparations, the Conference of next February really lias been called. If thoso pledges Jiro to be treated as "scraps of paper," the whole basis of which tho organisation of peace rests will be undermined. It is very unpleasant to be reminded that Article 8 of the Covenant of the League contains the provision that the members of the League recognise that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common- action of international obligations; tltaf; "in order to render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all naUons," a drastic measure of disarmament was enforced upon Germany by the Treaty of Versailles; and that, though this was done more than ten years ago, the general limitation still hangg fire. It is therefore in "the scrupulous respect for treaty obligations" that Lord Cecil finds the most urgent argument for the success of the Disarmament Conference, and in its failure he sees not only dishonour, but disaster. It is then, ho continues, no exaggeration to say that the most probablo political consequences of an unsuccessful Disarmament Conference next year are that Europe will fall into two armed forces and that tho competition in armaments will revive— competition not merely between individual States, but, what is far worse, between two powerful groups of States manoeuvring for superiority. It is only too likely that this most dangerous development will be accompanied by withdrawals from tho League of Nations, a policy of despair of which we have quite recently had a forewarning. I do not believe for a moment that the League, once more tainted with partiality, and with its prestige ruined by failure to achieve one of the chief tasks for ■which it was created, would very long survive. Nothing but the fading reaction against the last war would then stand between Europe and another and far more terrible fratricide. Here is a calamity which die-hard and pacifist might well combine to avert.