Eighth Assembly

Statesmen from 55 countries, members of the League of Nations, arrived in Geneva for the eighth meeting of the Assembly.

The late arrival of the enigmatic, dishevelled, brilliant Aristide Briand, French Foreign Minister, caused some comment. It was feared that, as on a previous occasion when "eye trouble" was said to be an excuse, political snarls in Paris were detaining him; for it seemed inevitable that he would be sought by German statesmen and persuaded to make a promise relative to early evacuation of the Rhineland. At the same time it was realized that M. Briand has nothing to promise, the French Cabinet having already expressed its willingness to reduce the forces of occupation by no more than 10,000 men.

Thus it was argued that M. Briand might still be suffering from eye trouble--not trouble with his own eyes, but trouble from the stern eye of Premier Raymond Poincare--an eye that glares discouragement on what it considers the too liberal, too pacifist policies of the squat Foreign Minister.

But M. Briand, successfully avoiding the Council meeting (see below), eventually did arrive, confounding the wiseacres. And upon his arrival at the Hotel les Bergues, the lively little Frenchman was soon holding animated conversation with the stolid, sleek German Foreign Minister, Herr Doktor Gustav Stresemann.

Chief among the agenda is disarmament. Sir Austen Chamberlain, British Foreign Secretary, was credited with a desire to postpone the next meeting of the League Preparatory Disarmament Commission, scheduled to be held in the fall, allegedly to try to avoid a discussion of the recent tripartite Naval Conference between the U. S. Britain, Japan (TIME, June 27, et. seq.). A well-defined movement to blame Britain for the failure seemed, however, to be in the making.

That general disarmament would be a major topic of debate in the Assembly was taken to be a foregone conclusion. Postponement of the Prepatory Commission could not fail to evoke a protest from unarmed (comparatively speaking) Germany, who takes the position that all the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles are under equal obligations to disarm.