THE PROBLEM OF DISARMAMENT.
Another proof of the Assembly's vitality was its resolve to press forward the work of disarmament, undeterred by the failure of the League's own Preparatory Commission to reach more than a limited measure of agreement or by the complete breakdown of the Three-Power Naval Conference. In three weeks the delegates have taken stock of the situation, revised and enlarged the programme of work, and decided that the November meeting of the Preparatory Commission, which everyone a month ago was for postponing on the ground that no hope of progress was visible, shall take place as arranged. Resolutions of that kind, it may be objected, can be largely discounted. Making paper preparations for morn conferences and committees does not carry the world a centimetre towards real disarmament or real peace. There would be more in that argument if the delegates who adopted the new disarmament
resolution were mere amiable idealists. In actual fact the resolution was drafted in part by Sir Austen Chamberlain, before he left Geneva at the end of the Assembly's second week, it was warmly supported on the Assembly platform by Dr. Stresemann for Germany, and by M. Pauf-Boncour, who was put- up to speak for France with his Foreign Minister
M. Briand approving and applauding from his seat in the body of the hall ; and a dozen other Foreign Ministers cast their votes for its adoption. That does not mean that dis- armament is coming next week, or next year, but it does mean that a more serious and more responsible disarmament movement has been set on foot than ever before to-day.
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