"Disarm!"

"In our opinion, the best guarantee of security for all people is imme- diate and complete disarmament. . . . The disarmament commission [of the League of Nations] is merely decorative and has not advanced disarmament a single step. . . . Should our plans for complete World disarmament seem too complex, at first, that is because complete disarmament has always been treated as a forbidden subject and has never been thoroughly dealt with."

Such were words flung, last week at Geneva, by a stout, leather-lunged, aggressive Russian at the gentlemen who compose the League's Preparatory Disarmament Commission (TIME, Sept. 26, et seq.). The gentlemen, having been called "purely decorative," sat unmoved. The Russian, Comrade Maxim Maximovitch Litvinov, Assistant Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, then proposed that every nation should:

I. Destroy all weapons, ammunition, military supplies, and apparatus for chemical warfare.

II. Scrap all war boats and military or naval aircraft.

III. Disband all combatant forces, and cease to call up citizens for military training.

IV. Abolish military, naval and air ministries, as well as general staffs and corps of officers.

V. Enact legislation making war activity of any kind a crime against the State.

VI. Summon a World Conference in March, 1928, to give these proposals final form.

VII. Enforce the entire program throughout the Globe within four years.

Silence. Comrade Litvinov, concluding his speech, offers the Soviet proposal in the form of a motion. . . . Silence. . . . The motion is not seconded. . . . Litvinov stands for a long minute, lips pursed, brow furrowed, interrogative. . . .Then the League gentlemen vent their feelings by adjourning for luncheon.

When the Commission reconvenes, that afternoon, "there are speeches in reply to Litvinov. The Delegate of France, M. Joseph Paul-Boncour, takes him softly and indulgently to task for disparaging and seeking to hurry the progress of the League toward Security: a goal deemed inseparable from Disarmament. "If our progress has been slow," says M. Paul-Boncour, "the real fault lies in a lack of 'the international spirit' throughout the World, which no one can remedy in a day. . . ."

There follows the Delegate of Czechoslovakia, keen, supple Foreign Minister Edouard Benes (Benesch) who casually observes that he sees nothing very new about the Soviet plan. The late U. S. President Woodrow Wilson, says Benes, envisioned wholesale scrapping of armaments. . . .

Swiftly, now, the elastic League machinery resumes its normal course. The Commission votes to defer additional debate on the Soviet proposal until it meets again, in March. Litvinov has to be content with this, and seems not unhappy amid such pleasant surroundings. He is receiving scores of congratulatory messages. One is from Mrs. Henry Villard,* Chairman of the Manhattan Women's Peace Society. Cables she: "Thrilled by Russia's forward step toward world peace, the only one possible if we would really have true peace between nations."

At Washington, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, William Edgar Borah, says: "The loitering, hesitating cheeseparing efforts at disarmament heretofore made will really get nowhere. . . . I do not think the proposal of Russia is in bad faith. I do not think Germany's manifested desire for disarma- ment is in bad faith. I have no idea that either Russia or Germany expects complete disarmament, and I have an idea that while radical proposals have been made, much less radical proposals will be acceptable. But I think both the Russian and German leaders would like to see pronounced steps toward disarmament."

Security. Having smothered the Russian disarmament scare, the Preparatory Commission for Disarmament proceeded, last week, to the routine business of creating a new subordinate body: The Arbitration and Security Commission.

This was composed of exactly the same members as the parent Disarmament Commission, except that the Russian and U. S. Delegates announced themselves unable to participate. Comrade Litvinov finally consented to sit as an "observer"; but the U. S. Delegate, Hugh R. Wilson, U. S. Minister to Switzerland, had inflexible instructions from Washington.

The United States, he announced, could not cooperate in the work of the Arbitration and Security Commission "because of our determination to leave to the European nations those matters which are peculiarly their own concern and not ours."

Next day the new Security Commission adjourned until February, after mapping an agenda for itself which contemplates a study of how Security may be achieved by a network of "regional pacts," such as the Locarno Treaties (TIME, Nov. 2, 1925). The Disarmament Commission also adjourned, but not until the British Delegate, Lord Cushendun, had made a significant pronouncement. He, a sturdy Ulster patriot, declared: "The empire has reduced our army and navy, voluntarily, to the lowest possible level consistent with safety. ... We have stripped off our clothes and have nothing else to take off."

*Mother of Oswald Garrison Villard, editor-owner of the Nation; daughter of the late William Lloyd Garrison, Abolitionist.