A.—s

The report of the Committee on Arbitration and Security is Document A. 11, and it was this report which came before the Third Committee. In the committee there was a general discussion, and, on the whole, it was agreed that a convention was desirable ; but there was no hope of making headway in full committee, so the Chairman proposed a Committee of Conciliation, consisting of the delegates of Norway, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, and himself. This Conciliation Committee, which held one meeting, reported — (1) The draft treaty should be transformed into a draft convention. (2) On Article 1 there was unanimity. (3) The convention should ensure the integral application of Article 11 of the Covenant by making compulsory the acceptance of recommendations of the Council for avoiding contact between opposing forces when there was a threat of war. (4) The convention should provide for the supervision of measures recommended by the Council. (5) The convention being limited to the prevention of war as envisaged in Article 11 of the Covenant, the application of Article 16 of the Covenant should remain intact, but the convention should result in facilitating the application of this Article. (6) The Assembly should ask the Council to appoint a special committee to continue the study of the draft convention. The Third Committee's report to the Assembly is Document A. 71, and it was adopted by the Assembly on the 30th September. The special committee is to be instructed "to draw up a report in sufficient time for submission to the Twelfth Assembly." Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference. In considering disarmament and the measure of progress which has so far been made by the Preparatory Commission we must not forget that, whilst nothing has been done in regard to Land and Air Forces, an important treaty for the reduction and limitation of naval armaments was signed in London in April last by the representatives of the British Commonwealth of Nations, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy. The President of the Conference, Mr. J. Ramsay Mac Donald, in reporting its results to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations, said : — " The London Naval Conference represents an advance made on the results heretofore achieved in this particular field. It is our earnest hope that the Preparatory Commission will find in the results of our work a contribution which will have the effect of facilitating its future labours." The Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference has been summoned to meet in November this year. The problem of the reduction and limitation of armaments bristles with difficulties. It is argued that we cannot have security without disarmament, or disarmament without security. Which is to precede the other ? Here is a field for the exercise of mutual toleration and of good will. We will, however, hope that the labours of the Commission will be animated by that spirit of conciliation which characterized so many of the deliberations of the Naval Conference, and that the report of the Commission will be of such a nature as to warrant the Council of the League calling a Disarmament Conference with a prospect of success. The Third Committee decided against recommending a date for the Disarmament Conference, and the resolution which it proposed the Assembly should pass, and which it did pass, reads as follows : — " The Assembly has noted with satisfaction the results obtained at the London Conference, and communicated to it by a letter from the President of that Conference, dated 21st April, 1930. " It considers that these results are of a nature to facilitate a general agreement on the occasion of the next meeting of the Preparatory Commission regarding the methods to be applied in the matter of the reduction and limitation of naval armaments. " It trusts that negotiations, pursued in a spirit of conciliation and mutual confidence, and with the determination to arrive at practical solutions, will make it possible to complete and extend the work of the Naval Conference. " The Assembly accordingly expresses the conviction that during its session next November the Preparatory Commission will be able to finish the drawing-up of a preliminary draft convention, and will thus enable the Council to convene, as soon as possible, a Conference on the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. " The Assembly decides that the proceedings and the report of the Assembly regarding disarmament shall be forwarded to the Preparatory Commission." The report to the Assembly is Document A. 74. In addition to the question of the reduction of armaments, the report deals with the Draft Convention on the Supervision of the Private Manufacture and Publicity of the Manufacture of Arms and Ammunition and Implements of War ; the supervision of the international trade in arms and ammunition and in implements of war ; and statistical information on the trade in arms, ammunition, and implements of war. For information on these questions, which occupied the Committee but a short time, I refer you to the Committee's report. When the Third Committee's report came' before the Assembly on the 30th September, there was a debate in which a number of delegates, including M. Briand, took part. The debate is reported in the Journal of the Ist October, and to this I refer you.

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