The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-07-20
LEAGUE FAV0RS CIRCUMFERENCE
 CONVERSATIONS
By HENRY WOOD United Press Staff COrrcsDondent)

Geneva, (UP)-Germany's sug- gestion of preliminary interna- tional disarmament conversation before the worlds general dis armment conference convenes in February meets with general ap- proval in league of nations circles.
 In spite of ten years effort to secure some basis of general agreement on disarmament, the league finds that there are still four important issues to be un- tangled.
 While all of these are not vital they all constitute obstacles to success.
 The most serious obstacle Is the Franco Italian differences on naval disarmament.
 Private Negotiations
 The league, after years of ef- forts in it's various disarmament conferences to secure some meas ure of agreement amongst the naval powers, was finally obliged to leave the question to private negotiation.
 The final outcome of this was the London naval conference but with the Franco-1talian diner- enccs still left unsettled this one aspect is sufficient to wreck the whole problem of disarmament.
 The second problem is that of the control of the private manu- facture of arms and munitions, This task was especially assigned to the league by the treaty of Versailles when the treaty makers were convinced that one of the principal causes of war was the efforts of big intuition houses like Krupps and the Schneiders to find market for their output.
 Lack of Authority.
 One of the principal lnsur- mountab ble obstacles to solution of this problem is the United States. The latter has no author ity, under the federal constitution n, to restrict the industries, arms ana munition factories of the indi- vidual states.
 The result is that the other large producing powers declare that to restrict their own factories and leave complete liberty of ac- tion for those of the United States would be merely the creation or a. world monopoly in America 5 favor.
 The third point is that of the control, through full publicity or the civil aviation of each country.
 Fourth, the question of trained reserves still remains unsettled. England, who originally insisted that these should be included Tn the disarmament convention, mr. ally gave in at the moment of the famous but defunct Anglo French naval agreement.
 The United States which was also strong for this limitation, also finally agreed not to insist, recog- niZing that the problem was European and that after all the United States is interested prin- cipally in naval limitation. Fight for Reserves Despite these concessions or attitude by England and the United States Germany and the other powers that were disarmed under the peace treaties have never relinquished their fight for the limitation of trained reserves.
 It is expected that at the dis armament conference they also will have the support of the Soviets and of Turkey.
 On the other hand, Japan, be- cause of her msular position and the necessity of having a large army for defensive purposes is one of the nations most oe- termined not to give up this ele- ment of national defense.
 With the difference of opinion still so acute on all four of these points, league circles f eel that a preliminary international dis armament conversation might &C., complish much towards clarifying the atmosphere for the regular disarmament conference.