"Stabilization of Armaments"

INTERNATIONAL

"Stabilization of Armaments"

Hugh Simons Gibson, U. S. Ambassador to Belgiumsb and President Hoover's peripatetic "Envoy at Large," knows what it is to go through a peace conference with the public expecting more than can be achieved. At such times, he knows, Peace is Hell.

In Geneva last week Mr. Gibson must have remembered that painful roasting which the Hoover Administration received when the London Naval Conference failed to achieve the expected reduction of armaments, compromised on mere limitation. Last week Mr. Gibson was thinking back eight months and ahead two years. He knows that in 1932 there will meet under League of Nations auspices the projected World Disarmament Conference, largest and most important since the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-20. Conceivably Ambassador Gibson will lead the U. S. Delegation in 1932. Certainly he may expect to be a delegate. Last week as the League Preparatory Disarmament Commission ended four years of intermittent sessions at Geneva, having completed a draft program for the World Conference, Ambassador Gibson uttered what amounted to a plea that in 1932 the World will not again expect too much.

Stabilization the Goal. "I hope that in separating at the conclusion of our labors we shall not yield to the temptation to indulge in mutual congratulation . . ." said Hoover Spokesman Gibson. "We have now completed a draft convention which, after study by the governments, will go forward to the general conference. I should not be frank if I did not say that this draft falls far short of our hopes and expectations."

At these words Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, who had just delivered for Great Britain a speech congratulating himself and fellow delegates, allowed himself to slide a little down into his chair, assumed an almost sulky expression.

"Make no mistake; it is not my purpose to belittle what we have done," continued Mr. Gibson. "Although our hopes may thus be disappointed, we can find comfort in the measure of agreement which has been reached in this commission. We can at least foresee a stabilization of armaments, the setting up of a machinery to receive and disseminate information on armaments, to educate public opinion and to prepare systematically for the work of future conferences, as successive milestones in the continuing process of disarmament."

Misleaders Flayed. Finally Ambassador Gibson hit out squarely at the professional disarmament optimists who have misled world public opinion for so long.

"I feel," he declared, "that we should be rendering a poor service to the cause of reduction of armaments if we were to lead our people to believe that this work carried the movement further than it does. ... It has been repeatedly said that real achievement by the conference can be reached only by an aroused public opinion. This is partly true, but it is not enough that public opinion be aroused. It is first of all necessary that it should be informed, for an aroused and uninformed public opinion may do infinitely more harm than good!"

Mountaineers With Hairy Ears. The Draft Convention adopted in Geneva last week was whipped into final shape this autumn (TIME, Nov. 17) after one of the longest diplomatic haggling matches of the 20th Century.

Sample of the diplomatic arguments used: Japan's Chief Delegate, Naotake Sato at a recent, vital session of the Preparatory Commission:

"We cannot agree to reduce our period of military training much, owing to the varying character of our troops. Some of them require much training. Our mountaineers with hairy ears at first refuse to wear soldiers' boots and our fishermen cannot soon learn to sleep in iron barrack bedsteads because the steel springs tickle them. Therefore Japan cannot accept the amendment proposed."

Arguments by many another great statesman were equally weasled. In the midst of the proceedings Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Maximovitch Litvinov quit the Commission last month, denounced Mr. Gibson and the rest as "hypocrites bent on conserving the armaments of their countries!" flounced off to Milan for a secret talk with Italy's Foreign Minister Dino Grandi, finally returned to Moscow leaving Russia represented at Geneva by pensive, hyperintellectual Anatoliy Lunacharsky. (He. as Soviet Commissar of Education, released an "educational film" in which talented Mme Lunacharsky played the role of the seduced heroine.)

Dollars v. Rifles. As adopted last week the Draft Convention lays down as its broadest proposal that "each of the High Contracting Parties agrees to limit and as far as possible to reduce its total annual expenditures on land, naval, and air forces."

This system of "budgetary limitation" was championed from the first by France, opposed for years by Great Britain, opposed to the bitter end by Mr. Gibson. He abstained from voting when this basic clause passed the Preparatory Commission, then attached a U. S. reservation exhorting the forthcoming World Disarmament Conference to reconsider.

Tartly the Hoover spokesman told the Commission that a scheme which provides for "budgetary limitation" is likely to have as its chief effect the encouragement of crooked budget bookkeeping.

"We honestly believe," he said, "that it is far easier to conceal the application of a dollar than the existence of a rifle!''-

Tear Gas Is Different. The Preparatory Commission wrote into the Draft Convention this civilized proposal:

"The High Contracting Parties undertake, subject to reciprocity, to abstain from the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or similar gases, and of all analogous liquids, substances or processes. They undertake unreservedly to abstain from the use of all bacteriological melhods of-warfare."

Other nations were willing also to outlaw tear gas, but Mr. Gibson successfully argued that the object was to ban inhumane gasses and that those, such as tear gas, which were more humane than machine guns, ought not to be prohibited.

Navies & Personnel. While proposing to limit land and air "material" (fighting equipment) exclusively by the budget method, the Draft Convention, so far as navies are concerned, supplements "budgetary limitation" by tearing a leaf from the London Naval Treaty (TIME, April 21, 28).

The Treaty already limits three navies (U. S., England, Japan) directly by global tonnage and by categories; the Draft, proposes that all navies be eventually limited by similar means.

In the matter of personnel the Draft Convention proposes that the total number of soldiers, sailors, marines, police customs officials and even forest guards (in short all armed "effectives") possessed by !each state shall be limited. Thus, within the bounds of possible crooked budget bookkeeping, the High Contracting Parties may have unlimited land and aerial weapons, but only a directly limited number of warriors.

Obviously a draft convention is not a treaty. What was adopted in Geneva last week for consideration in 1932 binds nobody, but may become the most important treaty ever to be signed. League officials estimated last week that the 1932 Conference "will break all records," prophesied that delegations from all over the world will total 3,000 statesmen, plus 2,000 wives & daughters, plus 1,000 correspondents.

sbBelgium named as her new Ambassador to the U. S. last week M. Paul May. "M. May," exulted the Jewish Telegraph Agency, "will be the first Jewish ambassador in Washington since the Marquess of Reading represented England here during the World War. M. May is married to a Rothschild." He is at present Belgian Minister to Brazil. sbRecently returned to Germany after conferences with U. S. financiers and a chat with President Hoover, famed Dr. Hjalmar Schacht expressed a most significant opinion:

"Unless the Disarmament question, over which the United States is greatly concerned, is settled satisfactorily, the Americans will not lift a finger to help Europe further." It was clear from Dr. Schacht's other remarks that he meant by "helping Europe" a voluntary scaling down by the U. S. of what the Allies owe in War debts, thus permitting them to scale down what Germany owes them under the Young Plan. "The Americans are the only people," continued Dr. Schacht warmly, "to whom Germany may look for some possible initiative toward revision of the Young Plan."

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