More Prestige

The Council of the League of Nations in session at Geneva (TIME, Dec. 13) became last week the antechamber to a series of vital conferences in hotel rooms between the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany. These so august statesmen were in a critical predicament. They had each just received a Nobel Peace Prize (see above), yet there existed between them ample grounds for strife. They were seeking to substitute for Allied military control of German disarmament civilian control by the League.

Jagged Edges. Foreign Minister Aristide Briand of France, anxious to conciliate, was hampered by the report made at Paris last week by Marshal Foch that Germany has not entirely fulfilled her disarmament obligations under the Versailles Treaty. (Specifically German forts on the Polish frontier have been strengthened instead of dismantled; and the secret training of young men for military service has not entirely ceased.) The Allied Council of Ambassadors, administering the Versailles Treaty, telegraphed M. Briand at Geneva that they would only indorse the substitution of League control for military control if the German Foreign Minister would give positive assurance that his country will fulfill her disarmament obligations.

Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann of Germany dared not give the assurances demanded lest he antagonize political forces at Berlin strong enough to upset the "Little Coalition" German Cabinet. He must win Allied concessions.

Finally Sir Austen Chamberlain was hampered in making concessions by a curious hue and cry that British industry languishes while German workers are busy turning out "half-finished arms and arms parts" which are sold to Russia or shipped to Sweden for completion and thence to Russia, China, etc. It was a pat coincidence that the Foch report was sprung and the British "half-finished arms" scare was popped while Premier Poincare and Chancellor Churchill of the British Exchequer were hobnobbing together in Paris--for these statesmen both oppose the conciliatory attitude toward Germany of Premier Briand and Sir Austen Chamberlain.

So difficult did it become to smooth such jagged edges at Geneva that Ministers Chamberlain, Briand and Stresemann adjourned the League Council, gathered at their hotel, and kept telephoning to Paris and Berlin most of the night.

Compromise. The German Cabinet soon gave Dr. Stresemann carte blanche. The French Cabinet met in three long secret sessions and finally transmitted to M. Briand "new instructions." The shade of Alfred Nobel must have rejoiced as his three Peace prize winners signed a convention adjusting their differences on a hotel table. With them, to bind the bargain, signed Signer Scialoja of Italy, Foreign Minister Vandervelde of Belgium and dapper Viscount Ishii of Japan, League Council members all. The role of Emile Vandervelde, veteran Socialist Belgian Foreign Minister, in last week's negotiations was candidly revealed by Dr. Stresemann who said: "He took the part of mediator between us. . . . Do not forget that Germany was the country with which Belgium was on very bad terms (sic) during and because of the War. M. Vandervelde's attitude is indicative of the new Europe based on cooperation and conciliation."

Convention. 1) The convention positively affirms that the Allied military control of German disarmament will be withdrawn on Jan. 31, 1927, and replaced by the supervision of a League of Nations investigating commission, as envisaged in Article 213 of the Versailles Treaty. 2) The instances of German failure to disarm cited in the Foch report will be settled by negotiation among the Powers, and should this fail will be referred to the Council of the League of Nations. 3) Ad interim all work on the German forts along the Polish frontier shall stop. 4) The present Allied military commissioners in Germany will be permitted to remain, although reduced in numbers, as "technical experts" attached to the Allied legations in Berlin.

The prestige of the League is again enhanced by placing German disarmament control in the hands of the Council.

League Routine. Before the Council adjourned last week it--1) instructed the Secretary General to invite the Powers, including the U. S., to a League Economics Conference (TIME, Oct. 4) in May, 1927; and to a conference to limit the private manufacture of arms in September; 2) took unofficial cognizance of a statement by Chu Chao-hsin that as the representative of the Peking Government of China he no longer considers himself the representative of China as a whole, since more than half the country is now in the control of the Canton Government (see p. 18).