Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1929, Volume I

500.A15/853

The Minister in Switzerland (Wilson) to the Secretary of State

Berne, February 9, 1929.
[Received February 21.]

No. 733
L. of N. No. 1269

Sir: I have the honor to refer to my despatch No. 715, of January 23, 1929, (L. of N. No. 1259)² relative to a projected visit by Mr. Col-ban, Chief of the Disarmament Section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations, to the various capitals of the great Powers of Europe for the purpose of discussing a preliminary agenda for the sixth session of the Preparatory Commission on Disarmament, which is scheduled to meet on April 15. Hearing that Mr. Colban had returned on the 7th instant, I at once got in touch with him, and he outlined to Mr. Rand³ and myself in considerable detail the views which he had already expressed: in Paris (to Mr. Massigli and Mr. Loudon, Chairman of the Preparatory Committee), in Berlin (to Count Bernstorff), and in Prague. Tonight (the 9th instant) Mr. Colban intends to leave for London to consult Lord Cushendun,⁴ and again to get in touch with Mr. Loudon in Paris on his return. As soon as he reaches Geneva he will communicate with me and arrange a time for visiting me in Berne to inform me of his discussions in London as well. In giving a summary of what Mr. Colban anticipates and hopes will be the agenda for the meeting, it may be that I give it in more precise and logical form than it actually shapes itself in his mind, for the reason that the conversation was of long duration, that I was unable to take notes, and therefore had to reduce the conversation to a skeleton form in my own thoughts.

Mr. Colban’s plans divide themselves into certain broad categories, which I shall enumerate in the order in which he hopes that they will be taken up by the Preparatory Commission.

1. Certain work remains for the Security Committee, inasmuch as the last Assembly, at the instigation of the Hungarian delegation, requested the Committee to make a study of Article 13 of the Covenant. Hungarian interest in this matter presumably results from a desire to pursue still further the optants question. Certain other purely formal business may lie before the Security Committee, but Mr. Colban is of the opinion that the Preparatory Commission, by resolving itself into the Security Committee, can accomplish such work as is before the latter Committee in one day.

2. The Russian proposal. (The Department will remember that this is a proposal for a progressive reduction of armaments. See C.P.D.–117.⁵) Mr. Colban believes that since the Committee took a resolution apropos of the first Russian proposal to continue its work along the path already indicated, the Committee will be urged by the President to adopt the position that the second Russian proposal should be split up into its component parts and treated as amendments to the pertinent sections of the draft convention. I pointed out to Mr. Colban that I had no doubt that the Russians would jump with enthusiasm at this solution; if we voted directly on acceptance or rejection of their proposal, we could probably kill it in an hour, whereas such a plan as he outlined would enable the Russians to air their views on every sentence of every clause of every chapter of the draft convention. Personally, it seems to me that it the Committee decides to follow Colban’s program, it will create itself into the most perfect and sustained sounding-board for Russian propaganda that has yet been offered.

3. Count Bernstorff’s proposals relative to publicity submitted in the session of March, 1928. (See C.P.D.–111.⁶) Count Bernstorff has shown entire willingness to have these proposals debated in their proper place, in the second reading of the draft convention, and it is believed that it will be found that a simple method of attacking this problem is to treat it as an amendment presumably to Chapter V of the draft convention. It is possible, however, that certain of the Powers will take the position that most of the matter covered in the German proposals is already being debated by the Special Commission on the Manufacture of Arms. However, it is needless further to discuss this matter at the present moment.

4. The second reading of the draft convention. Under this heading, according to Mr. Colban’s ideas, the subjects could be treated logically and practically in the following order:

a. Those questions which were definitely reserved for second reading,—for example, the question of poison gas. Mr. Colban is earnestly desirous that some definite statement, if only a resolution, be adopted applauding the ratification by some of the states of the poison gas protocol adopted at the time of the Traffic in Arms Conference.⁷

b. Budget limitation. On this Mr. Colban expressed the view that he was heartily in sympathy with our position that it was impossible to limit budgets; nevertheless, he thought it would be of extreme value to provide for the most complete publicity in budgeting and perhaps to work out a unified method of presenting expenses.

c. War material in reserve. Mr. Colban points out that this involves those questions which I have just been discussing in the Private Manufacture Conference,⁸ namely, whether an indication of the value of such material is of any use, or whether it is necessary to have more definite measure thereon. As the Department will recollect, those nations which have large arsenals have so far shown themselves entirely unwilling to furnish other than value of stock on hand.

d. Land effectives. On this question Mr. Colban stated that he finds an extreme reluctance on the part of the Continental Powers (by this I take it he did not mean to include Germany) to make any concessions from their point of view until they knew what form the solution of the naval question would take,—this in line, of course, with their general thesis of the inter-relation of the various arms.

e. The naval question.

The ground on which Mr. Colban is urging the order of events such as I have described above has some practical virtue from our point of view. The Secretariat has estimated that it would take the Commission approximately three weeks to debate as far as through 45. By this time the delegates would be very ready to adjourn the session, especially when faced with the very thorny questions which follow. It might be preferred merely to adjourn the session rather than to close it, and to name a future date for the continuation of the more thorny discussions.

Mr. Colban asked me expressly whether we would have naval advisers on our delegation. I told him that the Department had not yet instructed me in this matter but that I assumed it would be necessary to have them in view of the type of agenda which he contemplated. He stated that he was very glad to hear this, since irrespective of whether naval questions were to be debated in plenary session he hoped that the presence of naval advisers would enable them, by informal discussion among themselves, to find a way out of the naval impasse. I took the liberty of stating, as a purely private expression of views, my scepticism as to the possibility of this difficulty being solved by technical conversations alone, pointing out to Mr. Colban that the naval question in all the countries of big navies had assumed such importance politically that only the most responsible authorities of the various countries could stand sponsors for any agreement, and that furthermore only such responsible authorities could make the concessions which would be necessary for the reaching of an accord. I was careful to emphasize that my Government had given me no instructions to present this view, and that it was my personal opinion only.

Mr. Colban then touched upon the proposal made by Germany in the Assembly, namely, that the Preparatory Commission resolve itself into a group of subcommittees to treat the various questions on which agreement had not yet been reached. I am not able to state whether or not Mr. Colban favors such procedure, as he did not explicitly express himself on this point.

Mr. Colban emphasized several times the fact that he was speaking purely from his own point of view; that he had not discussed all of these questions in great detail even with Sir Eric Drummond; and that his view did not necessarily represent that of Mr. Loudon. He added that, while he had, of course, no objection to my reporting his views confidentially, he trusted that it would be remembered that he was secretary to this organization and could, therefore, have no official views on any question which arose.

Copy of this despatch is being furnished to the Embassies at Paris, London, and Brussels, and to the Consulate at Geneva.

I have [etc.]

Hugh R. Wilson

2. Not printed.
3. Elbridge Rand, Consul at Geneva.
4. Massigli, Bernstorff and Cushendun were the French, German and British delegates, respectively, on the Preparatory Commission.
5. Annex 5 to minutes of the fifth session (1928), League of Nations, Documents of the Preparatory Commission, Series VI (C.165.M.50.1928.IX), p. 347.
6. Annex 1 to minutes of the fifth session (1928), League of Nations, Documents of the Preparatory Commission, Series VI, p. 315.
7. Foreign Relations, 1925, vol. i, p. 89.
8. See ibid., 1928, vol. i, pp. 292 ff.