Again Wars?

Persia bought a modest $2,000,000 Navy last week (see p. 16). Germany let contracts for her third $20,000,000 "pocket battleship" (see p. 14). France began "war games" or "autumn maneuvers" around Chalons-sur-Marne to continue until Sept. 29.

In Bogota last week the Senate of Colombia voted $10,000,000 for "national defense" (against Peru) and 10,000 Bogotans patriotically paraded--this despite the fact that Peru's government has apologized for the "Leticia Incident" of Sept. 1 when Peruvian hotheads seized Leticia, Colombian port.

In the vast United States of Brazil (larger than the 48 United States) the major civil war in which nearly 100,000 Brazilians are engaged (TIME. Aug. 8, 15) dragged on and on. At Pittsburgh, Pa. five Cadillac eights were being armor plated by Armstrong Motor Body Co. "for a South American president" who is having the Cadillacs equipped to spray tear gas and machine gun bullets.

In Copenhagen the Danish Rifle Syndicate admitted filling a small South American order for $50,000 worth of machine guns. They seemed to be destined for Paraguay, which is still fighting Bolivia in the Gran Chaco (TIME, Aug. 15).

Bolivia, according to revelations by the Secretariat of the League of Nations last week has bought in the past two years $15,000,000 worth of arms from Great Britain and $5,000,000 worth from the U. S., paying with money borrowed in the United States with Washington's approval.

Since most big armament buys are successfully kept secret, last week was remarkable only for what came to light. Munitions were pouring into the world's newest state (see p. 16). Japanese arsenals were going full blast. Japanese Marines suddenly landed at Nanking, the so-called Capital of China, from which last week all important Chinese had fled.

Finally there was a brand new civil war in Shantung. Taking the field with 80,000 picked troops, able, honest Governor Han Fu-chu of Shantung marched into the hill country near Chefoo, stronghold of General Liu Chen-nien and 30,000 soldiers whom Governor Han considers to be his soldiers. Thus last week the businesses of armament and war were having, at the very least, a baby boom.

Again, Woodrow Wilson. Meanwhile the disarmament game of Words, Words, Words began again at Geneva, though one of the players (Germany) sulked and refused to sit in at La Conference pour la Limitation et pour la Reduction des Armaments (TIME, Feb 8 et seq.).

Strictly speaking it was not the Conference proper but the "Conference Bureau" which Conference Chairman Arthur Henderson came all the way from London to open in Geneva. Proceedings last week were definitely on the cheap. Representatives of the U. S., having spent $320,000 in de luxe Geneva hotels, had only $30,000 left of Congress's appropriation. Because of the U. S. elections they dared not ask for more. Acting Chief Delegate Hugh R. Wilson, Minister to Switzerland, moved the U. S. Delegation offices last week from the sumptuous Hotel des Bergues into a flat just under the attic at No. 33 Quai Woodrow Wilson.

To save bedroom rent, Chief U. S. Clerk & Mrs. Nathan Medofsky will sleep in the office. On moving day Mrs. Medofsky helped to arrange worn rugs and the cheapest office furniture that could be rented.

"These Americans, they have not even a lease!" marveled Swiss burghers, recalling that a few months ago the U. S. Delegation's hotel was not good enough for Delegate Henry Lewis Stimson. He leased at his own expense a Swiss palace crammed with suits of armor and other antiques. "The Stimson Musee" (TIME, April 25).

"General Appeasement." Paradoxically the Conference Bureau in Geneva stands one small chance of making some progress. Rask German sabre-rattling has made Britain and France realize that, after all, there may be something to the Hoover Plan of one-third reduction of existing armaments. That plan La Conference did its best to bury (TIME, July 4). But with Germany demanding either reduction of armament by the Great Powers or the right to re-arm herself (see p. 14), the first alternative suddenly began to make sense last week in the minds of Premier Edouard Herriot and Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald.

In Paris the patience of M. Herriot with Herr von Papen (a patience based on hopes that von Papen would "stop Hit-ler") snapped publicly before the Chamber of Deputies' Foreign Affairs Committee. Though refusing to give details. M. Herriot announced that he possesses "proof" of secret German rearmament in addition to the Reich's loudly trumpeted steps in that direction.

Apropos the Conference Bureau, Germany was sternly rebuked for refusing to sit in by the "United Kingdom Government" as James Ramsay MacDonald & Ministers now occasionally call themselves.

In a blunt "statement" delivered to the German Foreign Ministry last week the British Foreign Office called the von Papen Cabinet's attitude "unfortunate . . . unwise . . . particularly untimely." Rejecting Germany's claim that the Preamble to Part V of the Treaty of Versailles obligates the Allies to reduce their armaments,/- the British postulated that: "To state what is the object or aim of a stipulation is very different from making successful fulfillment of that object the condition of the stipulation."

Toward its close Britain's statement softened slightly but ended up stiff as a ramrod: "The limitation of Germany's armaments contained in the Treaty [of Versailles] was intended to be, and announced to be, the precursor of a general limitation by others. ... In the interest of general appeasement ... it is much to be desired that any such questions should be disposed of by friendly negotiation and agreed adjustment not involving either disregard of treaty obligations or increase in the sum total of armed forces. This desirable consummation cannot be attained by peremptory challenge or by withdrawal from deliberations which are about to be resumed."

In a word the United Kingdom Government turned thumbs down on permitting the Fatherland to re-arm and urged Germany to sit in again at Geneva where the Hoover Plan may get a better hearing --due to Germany's "peremptory challenge" to the Great Powers.

/- Full text of the Preamble to Part V: "In order to render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations, Germany undertakes strictly to observe the military, naval and air clauses which follow."

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