The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-06-18
By MEMO.

nF the seven months which the World Dis
armament Conference is calculated to last
four have already passed without the heroes of
bourgeois diplomacy gathered in Geneva having
adopted any decisive measures which would lead
to the melting down of one gum the discharge
of even one soldier and the saving of one item
OF expenditure on ornaments. After the League
OF Nations has taken fully seven years in pre-
pairing disarmament, the World Conference has
arrived at an impasse from which it is seeking
a way out solely in the direction of increased
military securities. If one examines the pro-
ceedings of the Disarmament Conference it be-
comes evident that the more obvious the fact
of a new war becomes, the more openly the wire
pullers of imperialist war abandon their pacifist
phrases. The struggle for ornaments and the
preparation of a new war is carried on openly;
the fire of the guns in the Far East has dis
persed the Geneva peace-fog.
After the World Congress had been meeting
for six weeks it was adjourned on March IS.
OF these first six weeks, eight days were devoted
to greetings and organizational questions, a week
and half to the setting up of commissions, and
two and half weeks to a general discussion,
which consisted of solemn speeches of all gov
eminent representatives. After this activity in
which the only positive thing achieved was the
rejection of the radical disarmament proposals
brought forward by the Soviet representatives,
the Conference was adjourned for three weeks
in order to enable the delegates to recover from
their strenuous eXertons Not even the draft
convention drawn up by the Preparatory Dis
armament Commission, and representing the re-
suit of five years work, could be adopted by the
World Conference as the fundamental method
of its further activity.
lnroti nta of l,o dc of t1ao
ent delegations invariably contained disarma-
ment proposals which were cleverly calculated to
be rejected by the other delegates or as the plan
for the setting up of League of Nations army
would be bound to give rise to endless discus
sions. Japan advocated the abolition of aircraft
carriers in order to meet the superiority of
America in this respect; America opposed sub
marines in order to protect its trade routes;
England fought for the abolition of bombing
planes wisely realizing its particular vulnerable
ity to air attacks; Italy opposed heavy weapons
of attack, because it was unable to keep up with
French ornaments The Geneva delegates all
endeayored to put forward demands which
would weaken their opponents and strengthen
the military position of their own countries as
this will always be the case under capitalism
The result of this method was that wo.: of the
World Disarmament Conference did not advance
ference adjourned, Arthur Henderson admitted
that in the first six weeks the Conference had
not even approached its main tasks.
When the World Conference met again in the
middle of April, there commenced game which
was interrupted by the Whitsun holidays and
was then resumed and is being continued up to
the present time If an important question de-
manded concrete answer, it was referred by
the General Commission to the appropriate
Technical Commission, from which it came back
unanswered. Under the pretext "unclearness of
technical detail" the General Commission re-
ferred the question to be solved by thsm to
technical Commission, which politely sent the
question back with the remark: question one of
political principle" In this way the most els-
nlentary questions remained open. as fo- in
stance, Shall only gas warfare a!co It's prep
arations be prohibited"
The technical committees Of experts at the
: Geneva World Conference, who should only play
subordinate role, have proved to be the actual
brake on the machinery at the Geneva proceed
ings. The Technical Committees, consisting OF