Long Step in Right Way

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 431, 13 August 1928, Page 9

Long Step in Right Way

FIRST LORD ON THE PACT

Britain Eager for Peace

Br-itish Official Wireless Received Noon. RUGBY. Saturday. REFERRING to disarmament questions, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Rt. non. William C. Bridfreman, at Hellifield, Yorkshire, last night, said Britain had done more in this direction than any other Power, and she was prepared to do still more.

The proposal for a multilateral . < pact was, in fact, only another way of proposing what on behalf of the ; British Government he had proposed at Geneva a year ago. When Mr. Kellogg, the United States Secretary of State, explained what he meant by an outlawry of war, he showed that his idea was that no nation which signed the pact should use war as an instrument of 1 national policy. That was a perfectly plain statement with which the j speaker cordially agreed. It meant that each nation could take what measure it thought fit for its own defence, but that each was bound in honour not to appeal to armaments in order to carry out an aggressive policy. It was almost exactly the same thing in principle as what at Geneva Britain had proposed—namely, that aggressive naval warfare should be

considered entirely out of court, and that the Powers should come to an agreement on what vessels each wanted for its own self-defence. The pact was a very long step in the right direction. Referring to the Anglo-French compromise, regarding proposals for a basis of naval limitation, he said: “At previous meetings of the Preparatory Committee for the Disarmament Conference, a good deal of difference ! was revealed between the French view | and the British. Since then, we have had conversations with the French, and by a concession on both sides we have arrived at an agreement, which we hope will be accepted by all the other nations. It is nothing to do with the American multilateral pact, but it will make it perhaps easier in the future to arrive at some agreement at the Disarmament Conference at Geneva.**