Evening star., 1934-07-08
WORLDPOWERS CONTINUE
TO HOLD FUTILE PARLEYS
Naval Conference Can Only Air Estab-
lished Grievances, Observer Says, Ad-
vocating Personal Talks by Leaders.

temporary lull in the European con-
dition, is now thoroughly and not un-
naturally alarmed at the present con-
tinental mess and aware that British
fiscal circumstances are improving.
Finally Tory and not a Labor gov
ernment is in power, despite the pre-
tense of a national cabinet, and
British public opinion is properly dis
turbed about the possibility of a new
war. On the basis of these facts,
the admiralty is now asking the fig
ures it demanded at the Coolidge
Conference in 1927.
That, after all, has been the ad-
miralty's story all along and 1t has
always stuck to it. 1t grudgingly
yielded a little in 1890, but it has only
one prescription tor safety and that
is 70 cruisers. 1t is going out for that
prescription at London, and to oppose
it will start a new Angle-American
row just at time when preservation
of the existing good relations between
London and Washington is about the
only contribution to peace that either
the United States or Great Britain
can make.
We don't need an international con-
ference to decide the size of the
British navy. The British are going
to settle that for themselves. We
don't need conference to decide that
We shall have the same sized navy
That's settled. There was a point in
the London Conference when things
became so unpleasant that one of the
London preachers of a Sunday pub
licly prayed: Give to us peace in our
time, Oh Lord-peace without con-
ference" About the only tranquility
left in the world centers about Anglo
American relations. Why disturb
them?
Private Farley Success.
Above all, why disturb them un-
necessarily? The last London Naval
Conference was conducted at the
Rapidan-nothing of importance left
unsettled there was decided in st.
James Palace six months later. If
there must be a conference. why
not hold 1t at the Rapidan, or, if that
resort has been closed, at Hyde Park?
1t took two men a few hours to frame
the agreements which we're later rati-
fed in the London Conference The
statesmen of five nations, working at
full speed for four months, only sue
ceedeo in confusing the public of all
countries to the point where domestic
recrinination was almost as bitter as
international resentment
The Geneva Disarmament Confer
ence has now been in session off and
on for 80 months. But nothing has
happened that was not foreshadowed,
not merely on the first day but even
48 hours in advance Of the first ses-
sion when France, through Tardieu,
announced that the question OF French
security had to be settled before any
thing else occurred. Barthou said the
same thing in the same place only
two or three weeks ago. And Sir
John Simon made substantially the
same reply which he had made to
Tardieu two years and half earlier
And, if the Germans had not quit the
conference and the League, they also
would have repeated their earlier COM
ment.
Once a conference has assembled
nothing can happen because each gov
ernment has, in advance, taken posi-
ton before its home audience, which
makes concession afterward out of the
! question Surely Americans still re-
| call the enormous row on Capitol Hill
during the London Conference wher
press dispatches announced that Mr.
Stimson and Mr. Morrow we're con-
Sidering giving a consultative pact tt
| France. Both our delegates knew thai
this was the only way a five-powel
treaty could be achieved and the con-
ference saved. But Mr., Hoover knew
what Congress was thinking. and sc
the only real possibility of an agree
ment was abolished.
Why hold a conference to accom-.
plish what can be accomplished with
out conference? And why attempt
to do by conference what never car
be accomplished by that means?
Copyright. 1e34)