The Council Sits

At Geneva the 37th meeting of the Council of the League of Nations opened with Signor Vittorio Scialoja of Italy in the chair.

An attempt was made to deal at once with the Mosul question (TIME, Nov. 30, et ante) and to make a final settlement of the Greco-Bulgar dispute (TIME, Dec. 14 et ante). Both the Turks and the Greeks, however, strongly resisted the adjudication of these matters which the Council seemed disposed to give; and it was decided that further investigations should be pursued before the Council hands down its ultimate decisions. Definite action was taken on only one matter:

Disarmament. Pursuant to a resolution passed by the Assembly of the League of Nations (TIME, Oct. 5), the Council proceeded to take cognizance of the work of the subcommittees which have been preparing the earliest groundwork for a League Disarmament Conference, and began to deliberate upon what further preliminary steps should be taken.

It was decided to convoke a Special Disarmament Committee at Geneva on Feb. 15, 1926, which shall attempt to clear the way for an ultimate International Disarmament Conference or Conferences under the auspices of the League of Nations.

The Special Disarmament Committee will in itself constitute an international conference of the first magnitude, and invitations were accordingly despatched to the U. S., Germany and Russia, as the chief nonLeague states, requesting them to send representatives to this important preliminary gathering.

The agenda of the proposed Special Disarmament Committee was embodied by M. Benes of Czechoslovakia into a long and complicated technical program, which provides that the following factors bearing on disarmament shall be considered:

1) "Visible Armaments": the actual armies, navies and air forces possessed by the various nations.

2) "Invisible Armaments": the population, geographical situation, industrial strength and war mobilizing power of the nations. Under this head special attention will be given to the possession by a nation of large fleets of commercial aircraft or chemical factories instantly convertible to war purposes.

3) "Degree of Security": the relative security of nations under international agreements such as the Locarno Pacts and the Covenant of the League of Nations.

Observers noted that the chief conflicts over this agenda centered about the well worn subject of "security." Viscount Cecil for Britain steadily opposed the inclusion of the "Degrees of Security" or "Invisible Armaments" clauses in the agenda. To him and to the British press, disarmament was evidently a subject which had to do chiefly with scrapping tangible implements of warfare. However M. Paul-Boncour, in the name of France and the smaller nations, insisted that the "intangible" factors actually outweighed the "material" in importance.