GENEVA SITUATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 131, 5 June 1934, Page 5

GENEVA SITUATION

SIMON TO REPORT RUSSIAN MINISTER’S PLAN IMPOSSIBLE OF ACCEPTANCE WILL LEAD 10 INSECURITY (By Telegraph -x j ess Association— Copyright) Received June 4, 8.5 p.ni. LONDON, June 4. The Daily Telegraph’s diplomatic correspondent says that Sit - o u Simon will report on the Geneva situation at to-day’s Cabinet meetings, and at the same time the Bureau of the Disarmament Conference will reassemble at Geneva and try to reconcile the various conflicting proposals, me task will not be easy. London regards M. LitvinoH s plan not nterelv as impossible of acceptance but more’likely to lead to insecurity than European security. It is an attempt to create a strong one sided coalition which will -orco the other Powers to come in at the sacrifice of their political claims and convictwns, or be ostensible branded as would-be aggressors. British opinion considers that, such a scheme would be bound 0 breed a counter coalition, with tne ultimate division of Europe into two rival armed camps, which would be de plorablc.

M. Litvinoff, Russian Commissar of Foreign Affairs, during the debate at the sitting of the General Commission in Geneva, proposed the transforma tion of the conference into a “per aianent and regularly assembling conference of peace,” to work out and perfect security measures. M. Lityin3ff proceeded: —“The only possible peace is disarmed peace. Armed peace negatives the principle of the Briand-Kellogg Pact. Many Governments and parties have been changed since the conference began, likewise their ideology and their methods ot dealing with international questions. But national policies have been , furthered by developments of warlike activities.” Referring t<» M. Litvinoff s declaration on behalf of Russia that the Disarmament Conference, so far as the, direct object of disarmament was concerned, was manifestly dead, but should continue in being because some pact of security could be evaded. Sir John recalled that even in 1924, when the protocol was under discussion, no instrument of security was contemplated as coining into operation until a disarmament agreement was reached. Jt would therefore be an entirely new departure to transform the. conference, called for purposes of disarmament, anto a conference for devising plans of security on the basis that no disarmament at all was posable. The value of security pact?. continued Sir John, depended not on the farz of a promise, hut on the certainty, if need' arose, of positive performance by the s’gnatories. From that point of view there might .be a higher practical value in a limited undertaking by a guarantee like the Treaty of Locarno than in some new, unlimited and world wide assuran :e.

SAAR PLEBISCITE COMMITTEE’S REPORT SUBMITTED TO LEAGUE [ British Official Wireless. ] RUGBY, June 2. The agreement on the question ol the Baar plebiscite, which is recorder in the report of the committee of three under Baron Alolsi. was submitted to •lay to the League Council for ap uro v a I.