15 OCTOBER 1927, Page 12

" PILLARS OF THE HOUSE."

The interrelation of the three " pillars of the house," as M. Herriot called them in 1924, was disputed by no one. Sir Austen Chamberlain himself at the Assembly of 1925 had declared, " Disarmament through security, security through arbitration—arbitration, security, disarmament are the common platform of the whole League of Nations." But the application of that uncontested doctrine remains to be worked out. Security has to be made still more of a reality. Arbi- tration has to be extended, though not without an intelligent definition of the limits of its operation. And above all, a practical scheme for the effective limitation and reduction of armaments has to be adopted and carried into execution.