The task imposed by events on Great Britain is that
of suggesting again, as in March of last year, a definite scheme which both France and Germany can be expected to accept. It - will no doubt mean asking even more of France than she offered in her own aide mentoire, which was a good deal. It will mean resisting firmly any demands by Germany for immediate rearmament pending the disarmament of other nations. There is . no question that equality must be conceded, but it cannot be effected in a day, and Herr Hitler can quite properly be held, to the five years period which he.spon- taneously 'offered last May. The crux of the whole discussion is the air. The organization of a German military air force would fill all • Europe with alarm. But if there is to be no German military air force no other nation must have a military air force either. The British draft convention provided for the reduction of existing air forces to a given figure pending a decision regarding the total abolition of military aircraft and the internationalization in some form of civil aviation. It is on the latter part of the proposal that all the emphasis must be laid now. The signs are that France at any rate is quite prepared to accept-it. Any internationaliza- tion plan is certain to be open to criticism, but almost anything is better than the perpetuation of military air forces, which gives open and -formal sanction to the principle of air warfare.
