ARMAMENTS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 23 November 1927, Page 6

ARMAMENTS

LIMITATION CONFERENCE AMERICA’S PARTICIPATION. I FORMAL ATTENDANCE ONLY. New York, Nov. 21. The “New York Times’ ” Washington correspondent says the participation of the United States in the meeting at Geneva on November 30th of the preparatory commission on armament limitation will probably be confined to formal attendance. The American Minister to Switzerland, Mr Wilson, will represent America, but as the security question will presumably raise no problems of direct concern to the United States, it is not planned to send technical experts, particularly as the discussion of armament limitations is not scheduled until next spring. The United States may find it advisable to signify its position by a simple declaration of policy concerning its non-interest in European politics. No word has reached the State Department that Britain is contemplating offering a resolution to the commission for the appointment of a special committee to consider naval limitations, as intimated in news despatches from Paris, and officials doubt whether such a proposal would carry at the Geneva meeting, but if one of the naval Powers made an informal proposal for Britain, Japan and the United States to consider naval limitation informally during the commission’s deliberations, the United States might consider such a suggestion.—(A. and N.Z.) SOVIET DELEGATION. AN INDEPENDENT PROGRAMME Mbscow, November 21. litvinoff. in a statement on the Soviet’s purpose in sending a delegation to Geneva, declares: “The Soviet has not hidden its lack of confidence in capitalist countries’ readiness to abolish wars and disarm, despite pacifists and pseudo-pacifists labelling the late world war the last war. The League pretends that its main object is to ensure peace It did not approach disarmament until 1924, and then deferred the convocation of a conference till 1925. ami even now the date of the conference cannot be fixed. Similarly the League’s studying of the reduction of war budgets has. since 1920, been postponed sine die. The League's work has solely resulted in meaningless declarations and propositions. “Meanwhile the Soviet has exerted ten years efforts at least to partial disarmament. The delegation now sent to Geneva deprives enemies of the opportunity of ascribing to the Soviet the failure of the conference, and prevents the Soviet’s neighbours from justifying their refusal to disarm. The Soviet is free from imperialism and pursues a consistently peaceful policy. It has proposed and now proposes universal pacts of nonaggression, urging full anti general disarmament. If this is impossible at one stroke or within a short neriod, it should at least be attempted gradually. The delegation goes fo Geneva with an independent programme, and will endeavour to concentrate attention on stable guarantees for peace, and will oppose diversion to questions of secondary importance or futile resolutions, making the conference the tool of this or that group of States. —(A. and N.Z.)