Evening star., 1932-10-19
French Premier Reported
Ready to Propose or Accept
Big Reduction.
POLICY REGARDED AS BID
TO BRITAIN AND AMERICA
Paris Also Is Studying Proposed
Five-Treaty Suggestion Offered
at London Farley.
BY PAUL SCOTT MOWRER.

BY Cable to The Star
PARIS, October l9.-France is ap-
parently getting ready to propose or
accept drastic disarmament in the near
future. Edouard Heriot, French premier,
Is known to favor it.
Feeling that France will be menaced
by the present German situation and
having to choose between trusting
wholly in the strength Of its own arna-
ments or wining at least the moral sup
port OF Great Britain and the United
States by accepting a reduction in
armaments, Herriot, after what can only
be described as deep trepidation and
searching of the soul, has personally
chosen reduction.
He has still to win the consent of
the French general staff and certain
members Of his own government, but
he seems confident that he will succeed.
Study Treaty Plan.
The so-called flve-treaty French plan.
which Herriot took with him to London
and the principal author of which was
really the Czech foreign minister, Dr.
Eduard Benes, is now being remodeled
here. The new draft is considerably
simplified, probably on good American
advice, so that public opinion can more
easily grasp it. 1t is being studied today
by the Council of National Defense.
Herriot explained the situation to
private meeting of the Foreign Affairs
Committee of the Chamber of Deputies
this afternoon and is holding a gov
eminent council on the subject this
evening. His general feeling appears to
be that the United States is today per-
haps Frances best friend, that Britain
persistently misunderstands France
and that Germany under Chancellor
Franz Won Papen is an actual menace.
in a speech before the Provincial
Newspapers Association last night he
made the following significant state
ments:
I'VE are at a strangely critical mo-
| ment. France needs the utmost vigi-
lance to preserve not only its own tran
guilty, but also that Of the others. We
are at the precise moment when hith-
erto dormant pretensions, evidently
| gravely menacing, are beginning TO
| awaken.
France Misunderstood.
II say this in all calmness, but also
| with the certainty acquired by care
| full study of events. Our country is be-
| ing directly attacked in some quarters
and misunderstood in others. 1 am
! continually meeting both this hostility
and this redoubtable incomprehension
| which misinterprets even our most gen.
erouS acts.
nr1r ,aI1 80 ",
a few years ago, is now obliged to put
the same energy into the struggle for
peace which 1t exerted then on the bat
| tlefields.'
The natural impulse, Herriot ex-
/ planned, in the face OF menace is to
! increase, not decrease armaments But
! France, he said, is not alone in the
| world. 1t must consider others. 1t
must keep all its engagements strictly
and do everything necessary to make
sure that right remains on its side"
viii Accept Compromise
The British Ambassador, Lord Tyr
rell, saw Herriot yesterday and asked
him If France would be willing to hold
a four-power conference on the German
equal-arms claim at Lausanne as a
compromise. He is reported to have
said yes if Belgium, Poland and Czecho-
slovakia are also invited.
! 1t is believed Great Britain, as an
alternative to holding the conference
which France believes and Britain sus-
! poets Germany wishes to avoid alto
gether. now proposes joint British
French Italian declaration assuring
/ Germany of equal juridical rights
within new disarmament treaty.
(Copyright. 1922