Evening star., 1933-10-01
ARMS CONFERENCE DYING
AS WAR TALK INCREASES
Thirty Months of Futile Discussion Nears
Inevitable End. Nazi Menace and
U. S. Helplessness.
BY FRANK H. SIMONDS.

BY FRANK II. SlMONDS.
Y UNLESS all signs fail next month
will see an unpleasant and per-
haps a violent end to that Dis
~ armament Conference, which
has lived so disastrously and
precariously for the last three years.
Even in the long list of unsuccessful
international conferences this assembly
has been conspicuous. Meeting origi-
ually because craftsmanship which
knew 1t was foredoomed to failure
lacked the courage to postpone 1t, the
Geneva sessions have continued for
nearly 80 months, broken by long ad-
journments because similar courage
was lacking to end what never should
have been undertaken.
It is one of the most striking ironieS
of the present hour that the Disarma-
ment Conference. which met to the
tune of the guns about Shanghai, and at
khe moment of actual although unde-
elared conflict in Asia, should be dying
ut a time when talk of new war in
Europe Is more general than at any
time since the truce Of Locarno put
b temporary check to European post
war political anarchy.
But while the events in Manchuria
exercised an immediate and fatal 1nflu-
ence upon the Arms Conference. its
failure had been definitely fore
shadowed long before. AS far back as
the German election of September,
1880, which saw the first enormous eX-
pansion Of the NaZi vote in Germany,
and the consequent temperance of the
Issue of treaty revision, it was doomed
When Bruening, in advance of this
vote. but In the face of the sentiment
which explained it, permitted his col
league, Treviranus, publicly to proclaim
treaty revision as a policy of the Ger
man government. all hope of diSarma-
ment expired automatically.
Frontier Problem Relegated.
For five years before, ever since Bri-
hnd and Stresemann, with the assist
ance of Austen Chamberlain, had
framed the Locarno pacts, the problem
Of Germany's eastern frontiers had
been relegated to the background Ger
many, in the Locarno agreements, had
pledged herself never to seek revision
by force. Britain, France and Italy
had approved Germany's refusal to ac-
eept finally the status quo on the
Nistula. as she did on the Rhine, as a
sign that readjustment might ulti-
mately be necessary.
Meantime, however, in the phrase Of
aiC 0ay, t11C OllS1l SOlIluOI Was W
become invisible" In return for this
German temporary submission to the
Treaty OF Versailles, the Ruhr and the
Rhineland were to be evacuated, the
feparations payments were to be re-
duced. Germany was to be welcomed
to Geneva and was to regain her lost
position as one of the great powers of
Europe, to be treated as an equal by
the British, French and Italians in the
League.
As result of all these complicated
and more or less unwritten agreements.
Europe knew five years Of political truce
and economic and financial recovery.
Chamberlain. BRAND and Stresemann
worked together. A new spirit marked
international meetings and prcgres-
sively Germany was relieved from mill
tary and financial burdens imposed by
the treaty Of Versailles. But in 1929
Stresemann died, Chamberlain disap-
peared with the fall of the Baldwin
cabinet. and with Stresemann gone,
Bruening proved himself totally unable
10 continue the Locarno policy Of his
great predecessor.
Not only was Bruening unable to
barry on in the Stresemann manner,
but he was himself Influenced by the
common German disappointment at the
kiowness Of progress under the Locarno
pactS. While reparations were reduced
under the Young Plan they were still
enerouS. Even though Germany's posi-
zion in Europe was improving morally
lnd automatically. Polands situation
IN the Corridor was daily becoming
stronger as upward of a million Ger
mans moved out and thus made way
for an even larger number of Slavs ar
irving to swell the already decisive ma
eorities of the Poles.
When Hitler boldly raised the issue
bf the Corridor in the campaign of
1880, Bruening felt he had no choice
when German public opinion, under
NaI impulsion, began to agitate for an
Austro- German union, Bruening, yield
ing again, permitted Curtius to make
ehe notorious Austro- German tariff
union agreement which Europe ac-
pepted as a preface to the Anschluss
These two gestures-that of Treviranus
pver the Corridor and Curtius over the
Anschluss- an end to the truce of
Socarno. Thenceforth Franco-G German
So-operation was out Of the question
Territorial integrity of her allies of the
little entente and Poland were under
challenge.
Arms Reduction Period.
During the period in which the truce
pf Locarno was operative there had
been distinct and considerable re-
auction in armamentS among all of the
victorious and successful states. France,
Poland and Czechoslovakia in particu-
lar, finding promise of security in the
tocarno pledges Germany had made
voluntarily limited and even reduced
their military establishments. But by
1880 the process began to be reversed.
Moreover, the announcement Of the
proposed Austro-German tariff union
Killed BRAND, first politically and then
physically and power passed temporar-
Fly to those who shared the German
views Of Poincare and Clemenceau.
The troubled Summer of 1881, which
tew the financial crash of Germany and
Austria, the failure of the Hoover mora
forum, the collapse of the Labor gov
ernment in Britain and the divorce Of