The first world conference on disarmament was opened at Geneva on the afternoon of February 2. Mr. Arthur Henderson, the president, made the opening address to the delegates of the fifty-seven nations which participated. He made a plea for disarmament, stressed the general desire of the world for some action by the conference, avoided making anything but reference in general terms to the conflict in the Far East, and invoked the covenant of the League of Nations and the Briand-Kellogg Pact. Committees on procedure, credentials, and petitions were appointed. Dr. Mary E. Woolley of the United States delegation was appointed a member of the last-named committee.
The next three days were taken up by the examination of the credentials of the various delegations. It appeared that over half of them were without plenary power to make a treaty, so that they would be able to do nothing of any real importance until their governments gave them the necessary power. A great many reports were circulated during this time and there was considerable effort on the part of various delegations to place their own nationals or their allies in positions of power. The ill health of Mr. Henderson made the position of vice-president one of great possible importance. France backed the claims of Dr. Edward Benes of Czechoslovakia, her ally. There was objection to this on the part of other powers so that a compromise was made whereby there were to be appointed fourteen vice-presidents to preside day-by-day in turn in case of the absence of the president. Seven were to be appointed, one from each of the seven great powers, including the United States, Japan, and Russia, and seven were to be selected from among the minor powers by a secret ballot.
There was objection, too, to the power that might be exercised by a small committee on procedure which would regulate the order in which matters should be brought before the conference and could keep some questions out entirely by adroit delay. The vice-presidents were organized into a sort of committee on procedure and then, to avoid any possible trouble, the fifty-seven heads of delegations were formed into a “high court” which should consider any political matters before any committee reports should be made to the full conference. While it is probable that a committee of this size will be unwieldly and will delay action on some matters, this disadvantage had to be accepted.
A great deal of the work of the conference will be done in separate committees on land, sea, and air disarmament and on budgets. These committees have before them the draft of a treaty on disarmament prepared by the preparatory commission after several years of research and discussion. It is expected that this draft will furnish a basis for the reports, unless political questions intervene and make it necessary to discard the draft and start anew.
On Saturday, the sixth, several truck loads of petitions containing in all about ten million signatures were presented to the conference by individuals, mostly women. Several representatives of peace organizations addressed the conference, presenting the requests of those they represented. The signed petitions themselves were of considerable bulk and were “stored.”
On Monday, the eighth, the presentation of the various national proposals was commenced. Sir John Simon presented the point of view of England, which was a general endorsement of the work of the preparatory commission and expressed the willingness of England to disarm and to follow along the lines already traced out at Washington and London. The only specific proposals made were for the abolition of submarines and poison gas; apparently no mention was made of a reduction in size of battleships. The English proposals were quite conservative and implied a rejection of the radical proposals of France which had already been made public.
M. André Tardieu followed for France. His proposal was quite radical and very definite and was based upon the idea that nations cannot be trusted to observe treaties without the pressure of force. In other words, “security” must precede “disarmament.” The actual proposal was that capital ships, heavy bombing planes, submarines, heavy artillery, and chemical warfare should be abandoned as national Weapons and should be turned over to the League of Nations to be manned by an international police force to put down an attempt of any nation to overthrow existing treaties by force. “Aggression” was to be clearly defined so that action by the League would automatically follow. This proposal naturally aroused a great amount of discussion. England had already shown her disapproval of an attempt to abandon national armaments. In a speech to the United States over the radio M. Tardieu attempted to make it more palatable to American opinion by stating that he was not committed to the League of Nations as the instrument to maintain the world police force, but that any international body would be acceptable. Many questioned the motives of France in making so radicai a proposal at this time, though many realists were forced to admit that nations have often failed to carry out agreements of this nature without the sanction of force.
Much interest was felt in the proposal of the United States which was scheduled to take place on Tuesday. Ambassador Gibson gave no encouragement to France and presented nine points along the line of work already done. Those which had reference to naval disarmament were specific in that he recommended an extension of the London treaty by adherence of France and Italy, the reduction of maximum tonnage, and the abolition of submarines, gas, and bacteriological warfare. The use of the draft treaty was advocated with the important addition that the United States desired some form of limitation of war budgets. The question of the size of land forces was to be determined by a determination of the minimum necessary for the preservation of internal order plus a sufficient number for “defense.” The spirit of Mr. Gibson’s speech was in sharp contrast to that of M. Tardieu in that the former stated that he felt that nations would carry out any agreement that they might enter into and that sanctions of force would not be necessary.
The presentation of the German point of view was awaited with much interest. The German press had been outspoken in condemnation of the proposals of France, contending that France desired to organize an international force, dominated by her, for the purpose of carrying out the Versailles Treaty. Chancellor Bruening reserved all specific proposals for a later date and asked for an equal treatment of Germany on the supposition that the Allies had entered into an implied agreement with Germany when the disarmament clauses of the treaty by Versailles were written. He avoided in that way any reference to the French proposals which had so stirred Germany and based his contention on legal grounds, which are rather shaky to say the least.
It had been reported that Dino Grandi would suggest a short way out for the conference by suggesting an extension of the present one-year truce in building to twenty years and that armies and air forces should be included. He did not present this but accepted the proposals of the United States and upheld the contention of the German chancellor in the matter of the treatment of Germany. He went further than Mr. Gibson and advocated the abolition of capital ships as well as submarines.
The Japanese proposals were conservative in nature except that they advocated abolition of airplane carriers and bombing raids. They were noncommittal about submarines and army reduction. Other nations followed in general the principles advocated by the larger ones. The Soviets stated that they had to maintain a larger army than they wished for “defense” in order to protect themselves from armies of other powers, organized for “defense” only.
The first two weeks of the conference thus saw the delegates confronted by two radically different schemes. France and her allies demanded security first and advocated an international police force to maintain the status quo against any attempts to overturn it by other than methods of negotiation. This is in direct opposition to the historic policies of England and the United States, which have been formulated in the belief that conditions change and that agreements must be altered in compliance with these changed conditions and that any attempt to maintain the status quo by force will result in greater upheavals than would be the case if matters are compromised.
The first convocation of the conference was subjected to a last-minute delay of one hour in order to permit the Council of the League of Nations to hold a hastily called meeting to discuss affairs in the Far East and to endorse the Anglo-American proposals for peace. It seemed rather absurd to be opening a conference on disarmament under the auspices of a body that had been unable to make any definite proposals for suspension of actual conflict. This dilemma was avoided by the endorsement of proposals already made.
In the United States the opening of the conference was celebrated by the ringing of church bells, but news editors seemed to feel that the reports from Shanghai were more important, or at least held greater news interest. The accounts of the conference were not of very great length and were often relegated to the second page. There was very little space given to comment on the French proposals, probably for the reason that there was such small chance of their being accepted by the United States.
The French delegation pushed their idea of “security” to the extent of proposing that a special committee be formed to consider this matter on an equal footing with the questions of land, sea, and air disarmament. The committee of vice-presidents or the “high court” will probably be called upon to consider this before long.
The ardent pacifists who presented their petitions on Saturday caused difficulties by their desire to urge that drastic action be taken against Japanese in China. Many seemed to be willing to advocate war as a remedy. Reluctantly they submitted to having their remarks toned down so that peace might be preserved in the conference room.
Salvador da Madariaga, the Spanish delegate, caused friction by attempting to blackball the Japanese candidate for vice-president. A report that the United States was behind this action was untrue.
Chancellor Bruening is very much concerned over the questions of debt and reparations and their effect on the political situation in Germany on the eve of a national election. He did not dare absent himself from Germany for any length of time and asked for permission to make his remarks to the convention on Monday. This would have given him the floor before the French proposals were made. M. Tardieu insisted that France should precede Germany, and made such a point of the matter that the chancellor had to wait until Tuesday.