Evening star., 1933-10-15
FUTILITY FOREDOOMS
GENEVA ARMS PARLEY
Observer Cites Former Failures and Eng
lands Return to Policy of Building
Ships When Needed.

British and American fleets, the British
admiralty still clung to the notion that
the United States would be satisfied
with the right to parity and would not
seek 10 translate this right into reality,
Then Came the Shock.
The decision of the Roosevelt ad.
ministration to employ a portion of
the money devoted to reducing un-
employment to naval construction and
SO to the attainment Of treaty parity
was thus shock to the British, the
unWelcome nature of which was dis.
closed IN their polite but not less point.
ed protest to Washington. Now in naval
circles IN London one notes a return
10 the old thesis: Let America build
what she will and let us construct what
we need. And in practice this can
lor equality but for supremacy, once
the restraints of existing agreements
are removed
japan Is, OF course, led to her de.
mand for pc rity by the disclosure of
American hostility to her program In
Manchuria, and by the effort of the
Hoover administration, in cooperation
with the League of Nations. to compel
the Japanese by moral pressure to
abandon their project of Manchukuo,
Again, now that the United States vis-
IDLY contemplates withdrawal from the
Phlllppines, the old concession Of re-
framing from further fortiication at
Corregidor or elsewhere loses its value,
unless there is change in political
control In Britain there is then little
likelihood that the present limits upon
British tonnage in any direction will
be retained after the new conference
OF 1886. And there is similar certainty
that Japan in any future conference
will reject any plan which does not
recognize her right to parity When
one considers the vast Importance
which was attached alike to the WASH
ington and London Conferences and the
enormous claims of achievement ad-
vanced for both, the meaning of the
recent developments and future pros
poets is obvious.
Policies More Important.
Actually, however, events alike in
Manchuria and in GERMANY have
served to disclose to all but the most
completely closed of pacifist minds how
little disarmament has really to do
with peace. As In the United States
the eighteenth amendment, which in
theory established prohibition. in prac-
e.SC OAiy PiouuCeu new evils WITHOUT
abolishing the old. so the world wide
disarmament agitation has only served
to distract attention from the Incidental
to the fundamental perils to peace.
Today it is clear that far more impor-
tant than the number or character Of
the weapons of a nation are those
policies which it pursues. A Germany
in theory disarmed has thus become
the greatest single peril to European
tranquility which exists today.
Since between the United States and
Great Britain there was-and is-no
basis for armed collision, the relative
size of the fleets of these countries be.
comes a question of finance and pres
tige, but not an issue of peace or war.
Since, too, 1t is a self-evident fact that
Japan will not attack the United States
and American disapproval with jap
anese policy will not extend to any at
tempted coercion, the question of
whether Japan has parity or only a
3-5 ratio is not an issue on which
peace or war turns.
Again. it is sardonic commentary
upon the claim so frequently advanced
by Hoover that the costs of armament
were producing worldwide ruin, that
one of the devices for restoring Amer
ican prosperity should be the expansion
Of the fleet to the limits fixed at Lon
don. Fanally, the presence in Wash
ington of a British delegation, come to
present debt settlement project which
amounts to virtual cancellation at q
moment when the British admiralty Is
disclosing its program Of the future,
pretty effectually demolishes the other
Hoover conception that the war debts
could be employed as a means to pro-
mote disarmament.
Geneva a battle-ground.
Meantime, at Geneva, a disarmament
conference which was to promote peace
by reducing ornaments has become q
battle-ground where the issue of the
conflict is the extent to which Germany
shall be permitted to rearm. But it is
clear that so completely has the ground
shifted under their feet without their
perceiving it, that those who are respon-
sible for disarmament conferences will
now claim success for the latest and
most disastrous of these affairs if only
it can be brought to an end by some
paper contract setting purely imaginary
limits to what in any event will consti.
many's arms.
Disarmament by international agree
ment and as means to peace was al
ways at bottom an absurdity because,
as recent history has proven, nations
will not agree to reduce their armaments
in international conference when peo-
Piles feel themselves threatened and
when dangers of war do not arouse
countries whose citizens remember that
they are taxpayers as well as patriots.
Thus international conferences to pro-
mote peace, when peace is actually in
danger. are futile. and when peace is
assured, futile. Unhappily, it Is the
former condition which prevails in the
world today.
(Copyright 1887