Evening star., 1921-11-23
Absence of Delegates With
Greatest Bodies of Troops
Obstacle.
AGREEMENT VITAL NEED
Present Farley Able to Cope With
Naval Reduction and Far East.
Results Show.
BY G. GOULD LINCOLN.

With the Washington conference or
limitation Of armament and far eas'
tquestions a success-and there i:
good reason to believe that it will be
a success-there are already indica'
tions that it will be followed up BY
future international conferences fol
the purpose of still further extending
the scope of this practical plan tt
limit wars.
Until there is some kind Of agree,
ment among nations of contlnenta
Europe limiting land armies, ana alse
what NJ. BRAND, French premier, has
called a moral disarmament in ad.
dition to a physical Limitation OF
armament, there Is no assurance tnai
| war may not sweep the continent
again.
Discussion Under Dimcuaty.
| At the Washington conference on
| limitation of armament there are
represented of the continental EURO
| p>an nations France. Italy, Holland
Belgium and Portugal. The last three.
; however, have been invited here really
for the purpose Of considering the
problems of the far east and not the
| limitation of armament. The delega-
tions of Japan and China are the only
Asiatic representatives present.
| tically of land disarmament, or limita-
tion of armament. when so many other
! nations having large standing armies
! are not represented at the conference.
| The very success of the program Tor
| the limitation of naval armament,
which now looks to be assured. is due
J to the fact that practically all the
naval power of the world is repre-
sented here. But when it comes to
land armies there is no representa-
tive of Poland. whose standing arm
is 100000. nor of Jugoslavia. the Bal.
kan states, Of Greece or Turkey, OF
Spain, of Russia, Germany. Hungary
or Austria. 1t Is we'll understood that
] it is impractical to, ask one nation to
limit it's armament when its next-door
neighbor is bristling with arms.
See No Action Now.
In military circles here the belief
| is that at the present conference
nothing will be done with regard to
| Limitation of land armament except
/ perhaps to draw up a set of rules
| for warfare prohibiting the use OF
| certain weapons. 1t may be that poi
sonous gases will be included.
| The United States, through Its MILL
| tary technical experts, has accumu-
lated a large amount of data which
| could be used in connection with any
| plan for the limitation of land arma-
/ ment. However, it is generally be-
| lieved that the United States will wait
! upon nations with larger armies to
| tssuggest a general plan for the limi-
| tation of land armies, particularly In
| view fthe fact that the United
| states has already reduced its own
land forces as far probably as they
| could be reduced.
| NJ Brands statement to the con-
ference, when he said in effect that
! France could not in view of present
| conditions agree to any considerable
| reduction of land armament at this
| time, undoubtedly put a damper upon
| the movement for land armament re-
duction. NJ. BRAND is now going
| back to France and is taking with
him his principal military adviser,
| which would indicate still more
clearly that there is small chance OF