31 DECEMBER 1927, Page 17

Disarmament and the Coolidge Conference, by Professor Noel Baker (Hogarth

Press, 2s.), is calculated to make us all think as to whether the security that the British Admiralty are seeking to establish is really security at all. "if Great Britain will not reduce at sea, who will reduce in the weapons in which they happen to be strong ? " asks the author. Who indeed ? As we have said elsewhere, disarmament or arbitra- tion is a choice of risks : we either accept experimental obliga- tions under the League, or we choose the gloomy alternatives of bankruptcy or annihilation.