Evening star., 1932-04-10

Monday, the outlook is bleak
alike from the point Of view of
ultimate achievement and i'm
mediate action. The Prussian and the
French elections coming Immediately.
the latter involving two turns and
reaching into May, insure that both the
attention Of the European publics and
the efforts of the German and French
statesmen will be concentrated upon
the hcme front. Thereafter the ap-
proach of the Lausanne meeting will
claim first rank while the aftermath
of the Prussian election may change
the face of European politics for weeks
and even months.
In that situation the Disarmament
Conference will have almost at once
to make several important decisions
Chief among these decisions will be
the answer to the question whether it
shall seek to do a little quickly and
adjourn early or drift along until middle
or late Summer, when the ether prob
lens presented by the elections and
Lausanne may be out of the way
If the decision is in favor of some
quick action-and it is clear that pres
sure in this direction will be exerted
both by London and Washington-it is
not less plain that such action will be
wholly insignificant, however much is
claimed for it by governments eager to
escape criticism at home. In reality,
any such program involves abandoning
all pretenSe at so-called quantitative
disarmament and concentrating on
qualitative.
Disarming Distinctions.
The distinction between qualitative
and quantitative disarmament. terms
beloved of Geneva, but little known
elsewhere, is simple The former in
wolves the remuneration of the use of
certain forms of warfare, the latter the
reduction in the numbers Of men and
material now maintained by the vari-
Gus nations. Thus, in practice. early
agreement involves throwing overheard
the whole program of reduction of
armaments and limiting action to the
attempt to forbid the use of such things
as submarines and bombing planes and
In general endeavoring to humanize
warfare.
But the obvious and fatal objection
to any such limitation is that, as the
last war demonstrated, conventions
agreed upon in advance of war regu-
latmg the use of various weapons and
pronouncing some illegal do not hold.
once the struggle has opened. All Of
this Is old ground, and the experience
IN the matter Of The Hague conven-
lions signed in 1907 is illustrative of
the whole fallacy Of this form of limi-
tatlon OF armamentS. If the present
conference, therefore, did nothing but
pan the bugs Of war" as was wittily
observed at Geneva, when it had been
expected to leash the dogs OF war"
disappointment and disgust in the world
would be general.
Even SuppoSing certain really drastic
resolutions were adopted in the matter
OF weapons and practices of warfare
every one recalls that similar agree
mentS, made again before the war and
embodied in the once notorious decla-
rations of London, were obstinately re-
jected by the British Parliament And.
OF course. all conventions signed at
Geneva would have to be ratified by all
the several nations of the world before
they could become effective. There
fore, any convention made now in
Geneva would be no more than the
first in long series of steps which
would certainly postpone definitive re-
suits for months and perhaps for years.
Thus while for the professional dip
lomats the signing of any convention
would spell a successful conference, it
Is plain that in view of the utterances
OF various public men. and notably
president Notwithstanding that the
way out of economic depression and
budgetary crisis was the far-reaching
reduction in the size and costs of
ADMINISTRATION in the use of gas
and poisons would hardly constitute an
impressive achievement.
Budgetary Cut Possible.
There is, however, one other con-
ceiyable line of escape That is a uni
versal budgetary reduction of 5, or at
most 10, per cent. But again this is
an apparent rather than a real thing
because many if not all European states
have deliberately marked up their bud
gets above the necessary points solely
to be provided with slack to take in by
budgetary agreements. Again the gen.
eral fall in prices in the world has
really constituted an increase in appro-
priations, because war departments can
now buy more with the same appropri-
atlons than two or three years ago.
In the case of France for example
and the case is not uniuue-a or 10