World Disarmament Conference of 1932

Report Outline
Arms Limitation, World Recovery, and World Peace
Progress in Naval Arms Limitation, 1921–1930
League Preparations for World Disarmament Conference
Prospects for Arms Limitation: Positions of the Powers
Special Focus

Arms Limitation, World Recovery, and World Peace

All Suggestions of postponement having been discountenanced by the governments of the great powers, it is now virtually certain that the World Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments will convene according to schedule on February 2, 1932. When the delegates of some 60 nations, including all countries maintaining large military or naval forces, assemble at Geneva, more than 12 years will have elapsed since the coming into force of the peace treaties which imposed virtual disarmament on the Central Powers as a necessary precedent to reduction and limitation of armaments by other nations. The forthcoming conference will have as a broad purpose fulfillment of the implied pledge contained in those treaties, as well as compliance with Article 8 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which definitely contemplated reduction of national armaments.

The present disturbed economic and financial condition of the world and the political tension existing in Europe, together with the immediate uncertainties created by the problem of reparations and international debts, have been put forward as reasons for delaying the conference. No government has been willing, however, to take the responsibility of officially proposing postponement. It is the general feeling that the conference has already been sufficiently delayed, that further postponement would be a blow to the prestige of the League of Nations, and that it might incite dangerous criticism in Germany as to the sincerity of the intentions of other nations with respect to armament, limitation. Furthermore, as Secretary of State Stimson said in a report to President Hoover, December 21, 1931: “The need for some measure of limitation and reduction of armaments has become more urgent at this time than ever before.”

The threat of a new rare in armaments hangs like a dark cloud over Europe, disturbing political tranquility and preventing that consolidation of peaceful and harmonious relations between nations without which a return to prosperity is impossible. The tremendous deadweight, of armament costs constitutes a drain on the national resources of all nations which not only has helped to bring about and to aggravate the present economic world crisis, but is also actively impeding recovery.