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"Unanimous in Principle." While the crews of all the world's submarines faced death last week, the Geneva Disarmament Conference continued to fiddle with President Hoover's proposal to reduce all armaments by one-third (TIME, July 4). Continuing to stand together, Great Britain and Japan renewed their efforts to lay the proposal gently away in cotton wool. This diplomatic move is usually accomplished by signing an "agreement in principle" which is no agreement in fact. Busily last week British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon worked at drafting a resolution to adjourn the Conference indefinitely on the basis of "agreement in principle" with the Hoover proposals.
Meanwhile in the House of Commons, acting Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin read a White Paper in which His Majesty's Government proposed not reduction of the number of armament units by one-third but instead reduction of their size by one-third. This proposal threw the disarmament question back five years to the Geneva Conference of 1927 when President Coolidge turned down a similar British proposal. The U.S. naval argument was then and is now that Britain's possession of far-flung naval bases in every part of the world permits her to use relatively small fighting ships with great effectiveness, whereas since the U. S. does not possess such bases its ships must be large enough to carry fuel sufficient to strike at longest range. The specific U. S. argument in Geneva against the British White Paper last week was that by proposing to change the size of fighting units it would force upon all the Great Powers expensive naval replacement building programs requiring many years.
"The British plans are intended to affect the next generation," said U. S. Delegate Senator Swanson. "President Hoover's plans are intended to give immediate relief."
Meanwhile Sir John Simon continued to draft the "agreement in principle" and chief U. S. Delegate Hugh S. Gibson took the cheerful line that "agreement in principle" is better than the alternative at Geneva, namely disagreement. Speaking by transatlantic telephone to Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson, Mr. Gibson reported that "the delegates at Geneva are working in close harmony." For U. S. political campaign purposes any flat rebuff to President Hoover would be unfortunate.
Turkey into League. Almost unnoticed amid the Geneva Conference negotiations the Assembly of the League of Nations met in Geneva last week, invited Turkey to join the League, applauded the Turkish Government's prompt acceptance.