DISARMAMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 23 January 1931, Page 3

DISARMAMENT

LEAGUE SHOULD LEAD

ACID TEST TO NATIONS’ LOYALTY

(Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, January 20

Mr Arthur Henderson, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, when opening the public session of the Council of the League of Nations at Geneva, strongly urged the League to lead the nations of the world in a bold approach to the disarmament problem. Disarmament by collective agreement was the most important question of the present day in international politics, he said, and was the acid test of every nation’s loyalty to the ideas aims and purposes of the League. An effective scheme of armament reduction was essential to the future welfare of the people of the world. Doubtless they would be told that the present was not a good time for reduction, that there was anxiety, unrest, tear, even talk of war; these things might he true, but he asked in bow great a measure that unrest was simply the result of tlie armaments then existing, and how far it was the result of the uncertainty as to whether war could be prevented. J.f there was any real danger in the present situation, it was, be believed, not the risk oi war in the immediate future, but rather that, through failure to carry out a policy of disarmament, they might drift' into a situation similar to that which existed before the late war.

Some people said that thre nations were falling into the old system of alliances for warlike ends. On behalf of the British Government Jie would say, without hesitation, that he knew of no alliance against war and against armaments. For the British Government and tlie British people he asserted that those only were their friends who would look with them to carry that cause to victory.