NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE Disarmament _Conference meets on Tuesday to take the most critical decisions of its existence— decisions, in fact, which may end its existence. No progress of any consequence has been made since the last meetings in the middle of April, yet there still exists a possible basis for agreements which even if they fell far short .of earlier hopes would still be well worth con- eluling.. There is the British draft convention of last January. There its the series of very practical proposals circulated in April by the Spanish, Swiss and three Scandinavian governments. There is the entirely reason- able scheme set out in the German memorandum of April 16th ; that, of course, is not. formally before the Conference, but any other State could. adopt it and produce it. The trouble is that each of these schemes has its own supporters and no scheme bas universal support. France appears to be, the ,obstacle to the adoption of any scheme, but it is not elear that France's last word has yet been said. In any case.after the series of conversations et deux between different governments the traditional League method of. public omission will be given a trial before the sponge is thrown up finally. Mr. Henderson can be relied on to see to that.
