Evening star., 1933-01-29
BOOM in WAR MACHINES
IS BIG PEACE PROBLEM
international Trade Issue Dropped
Quickly When Taken Up by League
and Disarmament Parley.
BY c. PATRICK THOMPSON.


full and penetrating eyes of the
- eX-King of ornaments must
have noted with faint dis
taste the announcement Of the Persian
legation at Washington that Capt Saga
Chey-Pani, an emissary of the imperial
Persian government, is in the United
States to buy machine guns and other
war material from Uncle Sans great
armament factories. Business going tC
8 rival firm? What are the boys on
the sales side doing?
True, the old man is a British knight
and has extensive British Interests and
associations, while Britain is threaten
ing armed intervention in Persia unless
Ria Kahn changes his tactics in the
handling of the Anglo-P Persian oil con-
cession business. But business is bust
ness. Fifteen years after the Great Wal
guns and shells remain commodities
like soap and perfume. The interna-
tlonal trade in arms remains merely 9
competitive commercial enterprise. And
the great British and French armament
factories which Sir Basil Zaharoff con-
trolled when he was active have seldom
found any serious difficulty about sup
plying war material whenever it was
wanted.
, Just week or two ago, for instance
1t was announced that Japan had
placed an order for 100000 worth of
arms and ammunition. This time Sir
Basil must have smiled f1eeting smile
Tor this order, according to the French
paper in which it was reported, went to
French firm. The recent flare-up of
activity in the Manchurian controversy
and the spread of the fighting into
Jehol Province has doomed business as
the warfare around Shanghai did q
year ago. And these booms in business
serve to emphasize the seriousness of
this whole armaments problem.
For it is hedgehog of a problem,
THIS private manufacture and interna-
tlonal trade in arms and munitions.
The Geneva League and the world dis
armament conference have picked it up
several times; but each time the prob
lem put forth all its spikes, and they
dropped it in haste. That is the main
reason why the arsenal Brno, which in
pre-war days was just a small repair
factory, has blosSomed since the peace
Into an immense plant employing 10000
OF the 10000 men on the pay roll of
Skoda, that giant armament concern
which makes everything from a bullet
10 tank and from poison gas to bomb
ing a1rplanes, and which has factories
all over Czechoslovakia and in Rumania
and Poland, and sells its wares as far
East as Persia and China and as far
west as Mexico and Argentina.
Busy Since 1880.
The arsenal Brno is no exception.
For there is boom on in the arma-
ment trade. From 1880 on the arma-
ment statesmen have been kept buster
than almost ever before despite the con-
venlng OF the World Disarmament Con-
ference. The Mitsui works In Japan ;
the mighty Vickers- Armstrong combine
with its factories in Britain, Ireland,
Rumania, Spain, New Zealand, Holland,
Its japanese steel plant link with Nit
sui, its tie-ups with Fokkers and the
great Polish arsenal, the Societe Polo
naise de Materiel de Guerre; the
Krupp-controlled Bofors ordnance plant
IN Sweden; the Schnader-Creusotr ring,
the vast French arsenal, and the Skoda
organization, Schneider controlled: half
dozen huge armament manufacturing
plants in the United States; the Dider-
luS factories, whose Offices are hard by
the Palace of Peace at The Hague:
from all these, and many more. war
material has been and still is pouring
out in broad stream.
The legitimate trade during this
period was magnificent China and
Japan gave immense orders Irak
bought arms for her new national force.
Persia bought largely In Europe, Jugo-
slavia spent s50000,G0 Czechosloyakia
SG0O00,C0Q, Rumanla sos 100000 and
Poland Sl00000,00C The Schneider
Skoda ring got almost all the orders
from these four states. which have
standing army strengths to;aling. for
the four Of them, around 100000 men,
and an aggregate war strength of well
On toward 5,000,000 They stock a total
OF 100000 riffs and 10000 machine
guns and all the etceteras which go
Herewith.
This is only a cross-section of South
eastern Europe. Enlarge that to a
world scale, with dark patches in South
America, Japan, China. Western Asia
and the seas Whereon float the gigantic
fleets OF the five sea powers, and you
get more adequate realization of how.
III these piping days Of covenants and
kellogg pacts, war material factories
bravely withstand the slump and the
worlds armament bill now aggregates
a billion pounds.
Business in War Game.
The Persian affair is only the latest
1ronical comment on the problem of
the international trade in ornaments,
big business in the war game. There
nave been more pungent ones: For
instance: Some Japanese armament
firms selling China loads of the war
material she needed to resist the sub
sequent Japanese onslaught (37 per
cent of all China's immense purchase
In 1890. A pre-war British firm selling
the Turks the shells they subsequently
used to blast the British and Anzac
soldiers off Cape Helles and Anzac Cove.
The Shearer scandal involving Amer
lean warship builders. The Swedish air
force scandal exposed by a government
commission last year bribery of the
chief of staff by "a foreipn aircraft
firm). Schneider-C -Creusot arming anti
French Bulgaria and Hungary Skoda,
Schneider-controlled supporting the
electoral campaign Of anti-French Hit
Ter. And, last November, the British
Vlckers-Armstrong armament combine
advertising In German journals the
merits of its wares, drawing particular
attention, by its illustra tions, to the
peculiar merits of its field guns and
tanks (the latter being a weapon for
bldden to Germany under the Versailles
treaty..
The latter affair must have shocked
ZaharofI, if il the twilight of his long
Life the arm2:lcnt king is capable OF
being shocked by anything at all. Al
vertlenlentS in papers! 1t w2s not thu:
that he worked and travelled in Europe
In the old days. building up a business
which enabled him at last to dominate
the great British firm of Vickers and
the arms business in five countries, to
negotiate on equal terms with states
men in his fower-bedecked Paris man
sion, to buy up Monte Carlo and sell
out at profit five years later, to con-
solidate his position with orders and
titles-and to despise the world.
The technique of arms selling has
improved enormously since the day
when philosophizing Boston mechanic
named Maxim, bearded frock-coated,
top-h hated, made a round of the Euro
pean states with his newly invented
gun and a case of ammunition; and
in Vienna a tall young man named
Zaharoff, then the Balkan agent of
CruaIicl1 NnrIor,folt