"With What Face . . . ?"

INTERNATIONAL

"With What Face . . . ?"

Out from the wings of European diplomacy into Geneva's spotlight last week strolled that drawling Democrat from Tennessee, Norman H. Davis. A fairly large section of the European Press predicts that Mr. Davis is the next U. S. Secretary of State. Last week, however, he took the spotlight to speak for the man who made his comeback possible, Herbert Hoover.

In 1917 President Wilson called short, slim, Banker Davis to the U. S. Treasury as adviser on loans to the Allies; in 1918 he sent him to London and Paris as the Treasury's special representative; in 1919 Mr. Davis was President Wilson's financial adviser at the Peace Conference and Chairman of the Financial Section of the Allied Supreme Economic Conference; in 1920 he became Undersecretary of State. When President Harding took office in March 1921, Norman H. Davis vanished from Washington.

Four days after Christmas last year President Hoover plucked Mr. Davis from his office at No. 48 Wall Street, sent him to Geneva as one of the two U. S. Democratic delegates to La Conference pour la Limitation et pour la Reduction des Armaments. The Conference has proved disappointing, but not Democrat Davis. He has become indispensable to the President, golfing ably with Sir John Simon in England, slipping over to Paris for a quiet aperitif with Edouard Herriot, journeying to Rome for a naval parley with Benito Mussolini. Precisely because the U.S. Press has not yet caught up with the importance of Mr. Davis, his importance has continued great in delving and dickering around Europe for the President, comparatively unnoticed.

Geneva newshawks called what Diplomat Davis said last week his "maiden speech." As the urbane veteran of perhaps 100 diplomatic causeries in the last ten months, Mr. Davis could afford to ignore the implication of naivete. He spoke for the President pointedly thus:

"The only legitimate and useful purpose for which a nation should maintain armaments is for self defense. . . . Armaments may reach a point where they cease to give security. . . . The expenditures on armaments are greater today than they were before the War. . . . We are not going to pull very far out of this Depression unless we reduce armaments and make a genuine success of this Conference !"

British Plan. Making a success of the Conference meant, last week, that the Great Powers must get their new disarmament plans off their Chief Delegates' chests and that these plans must be such as to tempt Germany back into the parley.

The French Plan, expounded by leonine War Minister Maitre Joseph Paul-Boncour (TIME, Nov. 14), promised to Germans a form of "arms equality" which the German Press ridiculed last week as "Utopian," "Platonic" and "a very clever scheme to preserve" French supremacy.

Great Britain launched her plan in Geneva only after British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon had twice postponed his launching speech last week, twice altering it into a form slightly more favorable to Germany. As Berlin's independent Vossische Zeitung dryly observed: "The empty [German] chair at Geneva has done better service for the German cause than could have the most impassioned pleadings of the German delegate."

Pallid, intellectual Sir John Simon. Britain's most expensive lawyer, pleased Germans by declaring that:

1) "Germany should be permitted to build ships of a type similar to that upon which the great naval powers shall finally agree."

2) "The submarine should be wholly abolished . . . [as] the best way of meeting Germany's claims to equality of treatment regarding this weapon."

3) "The obvious way of according to Germany equality of treatment [on large mobile guns], while at the same time making a great advance in disarmament, is to press for general reduction ... to . . . the maximum calibre of large mobile guns permitted to Germany [namely] 105 millimeters''--about 4 1/2 in.

Jokers in the Simon speech, from Germany's point of view, included the Great British lawyer's bland statement: "The guiding principle must remain that . . . the reorganization of German forces must not involve increases in Germany's powers of military aggression."

From the point of view of Frenchmen and Italians, who regard the submarine as their only defense against Great Britain's overwhelmingly superior surface ships, Sir John Simon's repetition of Britain's immemorial demand for "wholly abolishing" submarines was simply the old, old British joker.

"Large tanks" were termed by Sir John "unquestionably offensive" but he held that "the modern tank of lighter type . . . cannot be regarded as an offensive weapon." This point Sir John emphasized by threatening that "universal prohibition [of the light tank] would inevitably in-volve--as far as the United Kingdom is concerned--an increase in its present land forces in terms of manpower."

Frenchmen, whose fighting air fleet is the world's biggest, pricked up their ears at Sir John's reference to Britain's Royal Air Force as "only fifth in size today," smiled wearily when he proposed that other Great Powers "immediately" reduce their air fleets to the same size as the British, after which His Majesty's Government would willingly participate in a general cut of all air fleets by one-third.

A ranking French delegate said privately, after Sir John sat down. "Well, the French Navy is about fifth in the world, therefore let Britain and other nations reduce to our strength on the seas!"

Significance, Japan, Italy, and Germany (when she returns) have yet to present their latest disarmament plans at Geneva. The statesmen present last week called themselves explicity "the Conference," but they were in fact the Conference "bureau." the committee which is receiving plans preparatory to the formal reconvening of the Conference proper next year.

At that time, as the London Times ventured to hope last week, it may prove possible to incorporate features of all the disarmament plans into a General Treaty, which the Geneva statesmen said last week "should run for either ten or 20 years."

That the U. S. thesis of fighting Depression by Disarmament is making some headway abroad was suggested by London's Liberal News Chronicle which closed its review of Geneva doings last week with this challenging question to Britons: "With what face can we demand that America shall release us from the burden of our War debts if we refuse to release ourselves from the burden of our preparations for war?"

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