A.—5D.

The final meeting of the Ninety-ninth Session of the Council was held on the evening of the sth October, first in private and then in public. The following items were dealt with :— Technical Collaboration between the League of Nations and China. The Assembly having considered the proposal to provide credits for the campaign against the spread of epidemics in China and taken the decision to fix at 2,000,000 Swiss francs the sum to be granted, the Council passed the following resolution :— " Decides to request the Secretary-General— " (a) To summon for 14th October a meeting of a sub-committee of the Health Committee, assisted by competent experts, for the purpose of drawing up a plan to assist the Chinese authorities to organize the campaign against epidemics ; (b) To communicate to that sub-committee the Supervisory Commission's report approved by the Assembly (Document A. 76 (a), 1937), drawing its particular attention to paragraph (III) of that report; "(c) To communicate as soon as possible the plan prepared by the above-mentioned sub-committee in order to enable the Supervisory Commission to perform the task entrusted to it by the Assembly ; " (d) To inform the Council Committee for Technical Collaboration with China of the. action taken on this decision." (See Documents C. 465, 1937, and C. 468, 1937.) Health. My report on certain health questions, which is Document C. 455, 1937, 111, covers several phases of the health work of the League. The Council approved of the Assembly's request to send the Governments concerned the report on the Inter-governmental Conference of Far-Eastern Countries on Rural Hygiene. It agreed to the Health Committee of the League being requested to devote attention to suggestions which had been made during the debate in the Second Committee of the Assembly ; it also agreed to appoint a Preparatory Committee to aid it in determining the scope and agenda of the European Conference on Rural Health which is to meet in July, 1939 (see Document C. 455, 1937, III). /'V Perhaps I should mention that the Conference of the Ministers of Public Health of Europe which it was hoped would be held this year has been postponed. It was one of the subjects dealt with in my report on the Session of the Council held in May, 1937, and which you suggested by telegram I should attend as Rapporteur on Health questions (see Document C. 463). Reduction and Limitation op Armaments. The Council noted the Resolution passed by the Assembly on the 30th September regarding— (a) The question of an International Convention on the Publicity of National Defence Expenditure and the working of an organ of Supervision and Co-ordination ; and (b) Supervision of the manufacture of and trade in arms, a resolution which it requested should be communicated to States non-members of the League. A further question to be determined was the date for the convening of the next meeting of the Bureau of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. As amongst the matters to be discussed during the next session is the consideration of information sought from Governments, the date of the session is largely dependent on the number of replies received. So far only nineteen replies of a definite nature have come to hand, and the Rapporteur—the representative of Iran—did not feel able to suggest a date for the meeting. A decision was therefore postponed to the next session of the Council (Document C. 464, 1937, IX). Appeal of Spain. I have already devoted some passages to this matter, which also came before the Assembly, but I would here remark that the role of the Council was limited in scope, since it concerned itself almost solely with conditions in the Mediterranean. The arrangement made at Nyon for dealing with acts of piracy was between certain States only. The Government of Spain was not represented at Nyon, and her ships are excluded from the operation of the arrangement. The Spanish Government had since sought to have the omission rectified, through action by the Council, and there had been more than one exchange of views between all the members of this body sitting together with a representative of Spain. As a result of this exchange of views there was prepared a draft resolution (Document C. 467), and this the Council proceeded to consider. It was introduced by the President after he had invited a representative of Spain to come to the Council table. The Polish representative, after stating that his Government welcomed any arrangement which would contribute towards the relaxation of international tension or towards the maintenance of peace, said :— The Nyon arrangement doubtless belongs to this class of arrangement. Nevertheless, the Polish Government, being always devoted to the principle that certain States cannot, by their actions, engage the responsibility of other States which have not participated in those actions, finds itself unable, within the League of Nations, to give its approval or disapproval to the Nyon arrangement, to which it is not a signatory."

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