TO KEEP PEACE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 160, 27 September 1927, Page 1

TO KEEP PEACE

Security Against Aggression

GENEVA AFFIRMS PRINCIPLES Voluntary Backing of Nations’ Arms THE League of Nations Assembly has taken another step toward the definition of the requisites of world peace. The p:*inciples of security, arbitration and disarmament are affirmed. A committee is to be set up to study the problem of guaranteeing security against aggression. States are to be asked to declare what measures they are prepared to take and the forces available to support the decisions of the Council in the event of peace being broken.

By Cable. — I'ress Association.—Copyright Reed. 10.30 a.m. GENEVA, Monday. CURTAINED acclamation marked the unanimous passage ot the Third Committee’s re solution affirmed as follows: — (1) The creation, side by side with the Preparatory Disarmament Commission, of another committee, the mission ol! which will be to consider measures calculated to afford to all States guarantees of arbitration and security and, if necessary, to fix the level of armaments at the lowest figures. (2) An invitation co the Council to request the various States to supply information as to what measures they would be prepared to take, and what forces —naval, military and aerial —they would be prepared to employ in order to support the decisions of.the Council in the event of a conflict breaking out in any given region. The outstanding speech was that of Dr. Fritdjol! Nansen, who urged Great Britain’s adoption of the resolution. He admitted the force of Sir Austen Chamberlain's speech, and explained that if the small States seemed to underestimate the powerful support of the League by the British, it was because they had taken certain things as being 1 tea obvious to need restatement. They realised that Britain’s

hesitation to increase her commitments was due to her anxiety not to weaken the power and honour of the existing engagements by contracting new ones. They also recognised Britain’s special position iu relation to her units of Empire. Likewise, any new commitments were more onerous in her case, because she had the largest fleet, and consequently the committee had drafted a formula recognising the foregoing considerations, diminishing and not increasing Britain’s responsibilities under the Protocol.—A. and N.Z.