Evening star., 1932-05-22
BY FRANK H. SIMONDS.

| TeLdIy SGlL1SOn, IL Is pOSSlDle
| wv from the American point of
w view to ring down the cur
tain upon another European
adventure While the Disarmament
Conference still fingers on from ad-
| journment to adjournment, it Is mani
fest that even the most optimistic of
its champions has already dismissed the
idea of practical achievement. The at
tempt to shift the objective from the
reduction of the size and cost of armies
to the kind and size of weapons has
proved the final phase in the progress
sive collapse.
With the failure of the Geneva Con-
ference, following closely upon the ex-
ample of the Washington and London
| Naval Conferences and the various Ge-
neva disarmament meetings there
should be supplied sufficiently clear
| explanation of why in the present tenn
per of the various nations no material
| progress can be made in the direction
of any general and combined reduction
| of the armies or navies Of the world.
7 What must continue to puzzle all OBJ
| jective observers Is the fact that the
present impossibility of arriving at any
real measure Of disarmament should
not at all times have been patent. From
| the making of the Paris peace treaties
| to the present hour the world has been
| divided into at least three well defined
groups of nations with utterly divergent
conditions and therefore policies. The
victorious and succession states Of the
continent found themselves in 1920
| possessed of new frontiers which rep
resented to their minds a just settle
ment, but they saw these frontiers chal-
| lenged by the defeated nations. They
therefore organized their military and
naval forces to maintain the integrity
Of their territory. For them the prob
| lem was to protect their own territories
by their own forces until such time as
their former opponents renounced an
| nexationist policies or their former
allies agreed to share in maintaining
the status quo.
Losers Demanded Retrocession.
The defeated nations on their side
| progressively demanded the retrocesSion
| Of their lost territories and the restora-
ton Of their right to equality in arma-
ments with their conquerors. And as
long as they were forbidden by the
treaties to attain such equality every
project for disarming their recent con-
querors was grist to their mill. Their
armies could not be further reduced,
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provided a greater relative military
backing for their territorial claims.
Finally the Anglo-Saxon nations, hav-
| ing decided between themselves what
naval strength would insure each, not
alone security, but absolute supremacy
in their home areas and vital waters,
deliberately set out to bring about q
reduction of other navies to suit their
mutual adjustments and similar re-
duction Of European armies in the
name of peace and economy. At the
same time they refused to undertake
| any guarantee of the territories Of
| countries whose possession was chal-
lenged. They likewise refused to un-
dertake any pressure upon the chal-
lenging nations to renounce their ter
rttorial purposes.
The result has been invariable. The
nations which knew their security to
be challenged have in all cases made
reduction of their ornaments condi-
tional upon new guarantees Of security.
The nations which had been forcibly
disarmed, and which purposed to regain
lost lands, supported the Anglo-Saxon
states in advocating reduction of the
armieS-and navieS-because these were
the barriers to the realization of their
aspirations. But although as result
France and her various allies, repre-
senting above 100, 1000 900 of people, have
been measurably isolated, they have
never wavered in their stand in the
matter of security nor failed in advance
of each conference to advertise their
policy.
U. S. Meets Opposition.
American delegations have gone to
conference after conference with the
obvious purpose either to persuade or
eoerce the French and their allies into
reduction of ornaments without giving
them any American insurance for their
security or attempting TO bring about
any remuneration of policy by the
nations threatening that security. Thus
every conference has resulted sooner or
later in shock between French and
American purposes.
Without exception, too, each of these
encounters has been unfavorable for
the American delegations. At London
and before that at Washington and now
at Geneva France has inflexibly main
tained its thesis that security comes
before disarmament but in view of the
monotonous regularity of the results
the question naturally arises, at what
point in the game will the American
Government recognize that, for all
present time at least, French policy is
not going to change and cannot be
changed by outside pressure?
No one has to accept the French
point of view. Certainly very few
Americans win An American guaran-
tee of French security, which involves
a guarantee of the status quo Of Europe,
is unthinkable. French consent to any
material disarmament under existing
circumstances is precisely as unthink-
able. And why should Americans, who
know that they cannot be persuaded
to change their own national stand
point. continue to believe and act upon
the assumption that they can change
the similar national standpoint of
another great people?
1t is not a question Of difference of
opinion between two fractions of
French public opinion. There Is less
difference between the Right and Left
in FTance-aside from the Socialists
than between the Democrats and Re
publicans in the United States, so far
as the vital security issue is concerned
Herriot, who will succeed Tardieu, is
the man of the Geneva Protocol of 1924, |
but the Geneva Procotol involved the
precise commitment of every member |
nation of the League to defend all |
others against aggression. BRAND was |
a man of the Left and Of peace, but |
he never failed to repeat the formula, |
First security, then arbitration, then |
disarmament
Guarantee Was Repudiated.
Why hold conference after conference
to find out what you know in advance, |
namely, that French and American ideas |
about the maintenance of peace are |
irreconcilable? Mr. Wilson went to |
Paris with his ideal program for peace |
of under standing. NJ Clemenceau met |
him with a demand for an American |
guarantee of French security as the |
price of acceptance of the American !
formula. Mr.. Wilson gave the guar |
antee, but his country repudiated it. |
France then repudiated M. Clemenceau |
because he had accepted Mr.. Wilson's |
program in the matter of the Rhine |