A.—s

48

Arbitration Glauses in Commercial Contracts. —The committee decided to make a few drafting ohanges in the protocol with regard to this matter, which was forwarded to all Governments on the 26th May last. The revised text of the protocol will be found in the Annex to Document A. 83 (attached). Communications and Transit. —The documents connected with this subject are A. 42, A. 70, and A. 87. As it is not a matter in which Now Zealand is directly interested, and as there was very little discussion on the reports in the committee, and none whatever in the Assembly, I have no special comments to make. COMMITTEE No. 3.—REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS. Unfortunately, 1 was unable myself to attend tho meetings of this committee, nor was it possible for my Private Secretary to bo present. The main discussion centred around the question of the possibility of rendering some measure of disarmament possible by moans of a treaty of mutual assistance. 1 dealt fairly fully with this point in my report concerning the Third Assembly. Draft treaties prepared by Lord Robert Cecil and Colonel Requin (France) had been considered during the year by tho Temporary Mixed Commission for the Reduction, of Armaments and the Permanent Advisory Commission, and, as a result of consideration of these two proposals, and tho criticisms made regarding them, a draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance was incorporated in the report of the Temporary Mixed Commission submitted to No. 3 Committee for consideration. The terms of the above treaty will be found in Document A. 35 (Part I). Document A. 35 (Part II), dealing with tho private manufacture of arms, limitation of national expenditure on armaments, &C, is also attached, together with Document A. 20 (Parts 1 anr! II), containing statistical information regarding national armaments and Budget expenditure on national defence. Tho idea on which the Treaty of Mutual Assistance is based is twofold in character. In the first place, it contemplates a general treaty, to be entered into by all States members of tho League, and, in the second place, partial treaties for mutual assistance, to be entered into by two or more States and to be supplementary to the general treaty. Lord Robert Cecil and others contended that if provision were made to supplement the general treaty by partial treaties, whereby two or more States would guarantee one another prompt support, in accordance with prearranged plans, in the event of any such. State being tho victim of an act of aggression, it would render it possible for marry States to reduce their armaments to a considerably greater extent than thoy would be prepared to do in return for the guarantee afforded by a general treaty only. Such partial treaties would have to be. strictly defensive in their nature, and could only be recognized by the League provided that tho States entering into them definitely guaranteed, in consideration of the protection afforded by the partial treaty, to materially reduce their armaments within a period of two years. It is proposed that before any partial treaty is recognized by the League its terms should bo examined by the Council, in order to ensure that tho two conditions referred to above are complied with. There was no actual opposition U> the general-treaty proposal, but there appeared to be a considerable element of doubt as to whether, in practice, it would afford any greater measure of security than is provided already by the Covenant; and, of course, unless it did so, it would prove quite ineffective in securing any reduction in armaments. The advantage of the partial treaty would bo that a State which considered itself liable to be attacked could depend upon immediate assistance in tire event of such attack taking place, and would also know beforehand the extent of the assistance upon which it could rely and the lines upon which such assistance would be given. The opponents to the plan urged that it involved a grave danger of the return to the pre-war system of alliances, resulting irr competition in armaments between rival groups, rather than in any reduction. The strongest argument against this criticism appeared to be that there is nothing in tho Covenant to prevent groups of States forming defensive alliances without any provision for- disarmament, arid that in some cases, notably in the case of the Little Entente, such alliances were already in existence, and that therefore no new danger would bo created, while it would be manifestly an advantage that such treaties should come within the ambit of the League. Stress was also laid by Lord Robert Cecil on the fact that the Council would only approve the terms of a partial treaty provided that a material reduction of armaments was agreed to by the States entering into such treaty. Tho representatives of Holland and the Scandinavian States proved particularly critical of the proposals, while both Italy and Spain were also strongly opposed to the partial-treaty plan. France, on tho other hand (no doubt for the reasons mentioned in my report last year), favoured the, proposal, which secured the support of a fairly largo majority of tho members of the commit'too. It was eventually decided, however, that, as many of the delegates had only been speaking personally and not with the authority of their Governments, it would be necessary for, the draft treaty, as amended by the committee in various respects, to be referred to Governments before any further action in the matter could Ire taken. The terms of the draft treaty in tho form eventually agreed upon will bo found in Document A. 111. The verbatim record of the debate in the Assembly on this subject, at its nineteenth meeting, will bo found interesting. Temporary Mixed Commission. —The French delegates made an effort to abolish the Temporary Mixed Commission, contending that, as the members do not represent Governments, and could therefore only express their own personal views, the Commission would no longer serve any useful purpose. Lord Robert Cecil, in opposing the suggestion, contended that all constructive suggestions so far made with regard to disarmament had emanated from the Temporary Mixed Commission, and that tho Permanent Advisory Commission had only been useful as providing export criticism on proposals put forward by the Temporary Mixed Commission. Eventually a compromise was reached, under which the Temporary Mixed Commission will remain in existence for another year, but the next Assembly will consider whether it is advisable to prolong it after that date, and in the meantime the Council is to endeavour to arrange for closer co-operation between tho Temporary Mixed Commission and the Permanent Advisory Commission with a view to preventing any overlapping.