Some pointed comments on the armaments situation and upon the problem of security were made to-Gay by the Lord Privy Seal, Mr. Anthony Eden. at a meeting in Staffordshire.
He expressed his conviction that, it a disarmament convention were to be reached, it could only be reached on the basis of the British memoran-Gum, He did not accept the view sometimes expressed that, if only the British Government would be more conciliatory on the question of security and would offer to do more to meet the anxieties of heavily armed Powers, a convention could be reached without further diticultv. There was no security which the British Government could concelvably offer to-day which would itself enable a disarmament conven tion to be reached, There were two kinds of security which could be offered. The first he would call territorial security. As to this, Britain had already gone as far as she could go. They stood by the Locarno treaties, but were not pre~ pared to extend their commitments In respect of those treaties to other parts of Europe with which they were not s0 intimately concerned.
There remained security connected with a disarmament convention itself guarantees of execution. The French Government had made it clear in April that there were then no guar~ antees for the execution of a con-Vention which would enable them to agree to sny immediate measure of German. ye-armament, There then was a qult—wide and deep and not bridgeable by any security offer that the British Govern= ment could conceivably make, "The truth," said Mr. Rden, that, for some months, "while "our concern in Britain has "been emphatically to seek fulfillment of the true work of the Disarmament Conference, namely, the realization of convention, the minds of other Furopean Powers, whether consciously or unconsciously, have been otherwise bent.
"Germany has beer' occupied with consideration of her own re-arma, ment for what she claims to be purposes of national defence.
France has been pre-occupied with the problem of security, made more Intense and immediate for her by the knowledge of the German re armament claims, A italy, pursuing a polley which sche claims tu be essentially realist, has come to regard disarmament as something which cannot now be realized and has urged limitation at the present level—a solution which, in addition to {ts unsatisfactory character, would be in practice as hard to' realize as disarmament "Russia has been concerned to change the whole character of the Conference Into an instrument for another purpose.
"We almost alone among the great Powers of Burope have persist-fed in pursuit of the original goal of the Conference, namely, disarm ment, T say this in no self-righteous spirit, There is self-interest to cite, but the lowest motive gives special interest in the success of the Conference, if only because we have disarmed so much already.
no. exaggeration whatever to say that, in s0 doing, we have disarmed to the edge of risk. Tam quite confident there is no nation at pre-Sent which looks upon the armament of. Britain with suspicion. On the contrary, if there is anxiety at all in respect of our armaments, it is rather doubt. test, having reduced them so far in a world which has been increasing its armaments, should not be in & position to fulfil the commitments we have under~ taken."—Wireless through Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.