"Beyond Human Aid"

With unusual bluntness, the London Times prepared to bury the Naval Conference last week.

"The life of the conference has not yet been officially pronounced extinct," ran an editorial, "but it is already beyond the power of human aid. Only a miracle can save it. All the optimists confidently predicted for it has come to nothing. . . . Mr. MacDonald's intentions were admir able, but he made the same sort of blunder made by Sir Austen Chamberlain, who reached a preliminary naval understanding with France in 1927, and then submitted it to the U. S.

"America disliked the Chamberlain method because it had the appearance of England and France presenting her with a fait accompli. When the present conference opened, exactly the same suspicion oppressed France. The result has been quite fatal. The conference has been a tragedy of mismanagement."

Loud were the wails of protest from statesmen and delegates. Secretary Stimson, whose delegation has already spent $350,000 at the conference, was particularly annoyed. Said he:

"The statements in many London papers today that the conference is dead or dying are not only premature but really unfair and palpably untrue. Altogether too much pessimism is being voiced. . . . The American delegation is quite prepared to remain here until a successful conclusion. It has shown a great deal of patience."

Symptoms. Despite Secretary Stimson, the following symptoms of rigor mortis were evident last week:

1) Before the week's close every single French delegate had left for Paris with the exception of Ambassador de Fleuriau, who had obvious reasons for staying be hind in his Embassy. In Paris Prime Minister Tardieu said that there was no possibility of his returning to the conference unless Lord there were "new developments." Lord Tyrrell, British Ambassador, called on Foreign Minister Briand, begged him to come back to a moribund parley. The Frenchman had left London with the announcement that he "might come back if there was anything for him to do."

2) It was definitely announced that the entire U. S. delegation had reserved accommodations on the Leviathan, sailing April 22.

3) In a speech obviously semiofficial, Nobile Giacomo de Martino, Italian Ambassador to the U. S., spoke of the "failure" of the conference, insisted that his country was not responsible for it. "The London conference has proved disastrous," said he. "You've often heard that Italy aims to promote confidence and world understanding among the nations. This is our lofty aim."

Three-Power Treaty? There remained the cold-turkey possibility of a three-power treaty between Great Britain, Japan and the U. S. Legal experts were at work on rough drafts of this last week. The tenuous hope for a five-power treaty, to which Messrs. Stimson and MacDonald still clung, rested entirely on the ability of France and Italy to adjust their differences. Last week's efforts to achieve this produced nothing but a few bits of repartee. At a meeting of the naval experts, the French spokesman insisted that "all hulks capable of conversion into effective battlecraft, must be listed in arriving at a nation's requirements."

"Hulks?" replied the Italian. "The two galleys of the Emperor Caligula in Lake Nemi, they are hulks. Must we register them too?"

"When I speak of hulks," said the Frenchman severely, "I mean such ships as the French cruiser which recently sank off the coast of Algeria. That is the sort of hulk I mean."

"Register it by all means," shrugged the Italian, "but my friend, you must register it in the submarine category."

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