A.—s.

that a meeting of the Bureau at the present time to discuss the Convention further would have useful results. It seemed to be agreed by all that, while it was desired to keep the ideal of disarmament alive, it was not desired to bring about a further discouragement amongst the peoples of the world by convening disarmament meetings, the favourable outcome of which must be extremely doubtful. He gave some account of the measures which had been taken by means of the London Naval Treaty of 1936 and subsequent agreements to effect a limitation of naval armaments, and he added that twenty-seven Governments had given formal notification of their adherence to the rules governing the action of submarines with regard to merchant ships contained in Part IV of the 1930 Naval Treaty. Qualitative limitation, at any rate in naval arms, was being effected in widening circles, and the United Kingdom Government would spare no effort to continue and to accelerate their efforts in this direction. He concluded : " Meanwhile, until a remedy can be found, men must work under the spell of those long dumb cylinders of steel, guns, or aero-engines which have become for too many the idols of the present time —idols which return nothing but death to those who bow before them, when at last they speak. It is for those lam addressing to prove themselves realists and to break that spell." At the conclusion of the debate a sub-committee, consisting of five members, was appointed to review the text of the draft resolution in the light of the observations made at the meeting, the subcommittee to have power to ascertain the views of delegations which had not spoken. On the 25th September the Committee met for the second time, when Dr. Lange, Chairman of the Drafting Committee, submitted a report and an amended draft resolution. He explained the scope of the report and the amendments to the draft resolution, and said that though the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments had failed politically, as all must regret, it was able on the technical side, following on the work of the Preparatory Commission which began in 1926, to get together a great deal of thorough and extremely valuable documentary material on the various aspects of the question of disarmament. There were certain gaps in this material : one of these, which was particularly regrettable, was in the case of air armaments. But, apart from this gap in the available material, it might almost be said that nothing remained to be done, once the political conditions made action possible, except to complete by a session of a few weeks or months the initial work already accomplished by bringing into being a General Convention on the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. They all hoped that the moment for such action was approaching. By approving the modest resolution now before them the Third Committee would be doing what it could to keep alive the sacred flame of the idea of reduction and limitation of armaments. The survival of that idea was an indispensable condition of the continued operation of the League itself and of the continuance of the prosperity of the peoples and of the maintenance of normal relations between countries. Dr. Lange was followed by other speakers, and ultimately the report with slight amendments and the draft resolution were approved by the Committee for submission to the Assembly. It was brought before that body on the 30th September, when it was passed. It reads : — " The Assembly — " Considering it desirable that a first step should be taken towards the conclusion of a general convention for the reduction and limitation of armaments, and that accordingly use should be made of the work done by the Disarmament Conference : (1) Recommends, in pursuance of the resolution of the Bureau dated 31st May, 1937, the conclusion of an international convention on the publicity of national defence expenditure and the working of an organ of supervision and co-ordination ; " (2) Recommends the members of the League, each in so far as it is concerned and to the extent that this has not already been done, to examine the possibility of adopting internal measures with a view to the effective supervision of the manufacture of and trade in arms, ammunition, and implements of war, on the basis of the work done by the Special Committee of the Disarmament Conference, and asks Governments to inform the Secretary-General of the League of Nations of the action taken on this recommendation ; " (3) Requests the Secretary-General to communicate the present resolution to the States not members of the League of Nations." Document A. 53, 1937, IX. FOURTH COMMITTEE : FINANCIAL QUESTIONS. New Zealand Delegate : Mr. W. J. Jordan. Substitute : Mr. C. A. Knowles. The experience which the Secretariat has gained in the seventeen years of the League's existence has resulted in a vastly improved financial administration. It is not only that the administration has improved, but the percentage of the collection of contributions is sufficiently high to give ground for satisfaction, even although in 1936 there was a slight falling-off from the peak year of 1935. The devaluation of the Swiss franc, which took place in September, 1936, was of considerable benefit to all States members, since its effect was to reduce the amount of League expenses expressed in terms of gold, with almost corresponding reduction of contributions. For New Zealand, the number of whose units of contributions was reduced this year from ten to eight, the drop in the amount of money to be found for the League must have caused satisfaction. The audited accounts for 1936 are shown in a series of documents numbered A. 3. The only comment called for is one on the extraordinarily large surplus, amounting to no less a sum than 5,592,101 gold francs, of which sum no less than 1,250,000 gold francs accrued to the League in the shape of profits on contributions paid after the devaluation of the Swiss franc. The balance of the surplus is made up of arrears of contributions and considerable savings on the credits voted. Part of the surplus (1,875,394 gold francs) is returnable to States members, whose contributions for 1938 will be proportionately reduced. To complete the story of the surplus, I may well anticipate the decisions of the

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