ssembly of
the League of Nations. Things began to move, primarily because the
Dominion of South Africa took a keen interest in this problem of the
reduction of armaments, and South Africa appointed Lord Robert Cecil as
its representative, and instructed him to press the matter on, and he
did. The Assembly definitely instructed this temporary mixed Commission
that by the time the third Assembly met plans should be prepared and
concrete proposals put on paper.

WASHINGTON

Soon after that came the Washington Conference--a great landmark in the
history of this problem. For reasons I need not go into in detail, the
naval problem is very much easier than the military or air problem. You
have as the nucleus of naval forces something quite definite and
precise--the battleship--and it also happens that that particular unit
is extremely costly, and takes a long time to build, and no man has yet
ever succeeded in concealing the existence of a battleship. There you
had three important points--a large and important unit in the possession
of everybody concerned, very costly, so that by reducing it you make
great reductions in expenditure. There was no possibility of avoiding an
agreement about the construction of battleships, and it is to these
facts mainly that the happy results of the Washington Conference were
due.

But for the furtherance of the problem the point is this. The Washington
Conference definitely established the principle of reduction of
armaments on a great ratio. The ratio for battleships between Great
Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy, was settled as to
5, 5, 3, and 1.75. They all agreed on a definite ratio. All agreed to
scrap a certain number of ships, to bring their tonnage down to a
certain figure, and by doing that relatively they were left in the same
position as before, with this advantage--that they at once obtained an
enormous reduction in expenditure on armaments.

That opened up a new line of approach for the attack on this problem
from the military and air standpoint. And the next development took
place in February this year at the meeting of the Temporary Mixed
Commission on armaments, when the Esher proposals were presented. There
has been a great deal of talk about the Esher proposals, and I am glad
of it, because the one thing wanted in this question is public interest.
The Esher proposals were an endeavour to apply to land armaments this
principle of reduction on a great