500.A15A4 General Committee/470: Telegram
The Chairman of the American Delegation (Davis) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received 8:30 p.m.]
688. 1. The report of the Committee for the Regulation of the Trade in and Manufacture of Arms59 together with the French amendments to the British draft relating to this subject (see my 681, June 1, 2 p.m.) formed the subject of the discussion60 at the meeting of the General Commission this afternoon.
2. Jouhaux61 speaking for France recognized that although the abolition of private manufacture was in the eyes of public opinion the only effective method of regulating this problem the time was possibly not yet ripe for such a solution. He presented the case for the French amendments and pointed out that what was asked was to put into effect as regards manufacture and trade the control and limitation envisaged for other sections of the convention for the limitation of material was impossible without complementary limitation of manufacture. The French delegation he said would accept any procedure which would permit at the second reading of the draft convention the presentation of a definite text establishing adequate and rigorous control over arms manufacture and trade which should form an esssential and inseparable part of the convention. Without it other provisions were of little value.
3. Following the Turkish delegate62 who spoke on behalf of internationalization of arms manufacture and Raczynski63 for Poland who supported the French amendments in principle pointing out that there must be a system of licenses issued for each order to be approved by the Permanent Disarmament Commission, Madariaga64 emphasized clearly the necessity for a strict control of all manufacture. This to him was preferable to the abolition of private manufacture and insufficient control of state manufacture. He proposed as a parallel to the French amendments which he accepted in principle three ideas, (1) the establishment of state responsibility for manufacture and trade, (2) a means of establishing a record of the manufacture, export, import and transit of arms which would permit public knowledge at any time of the quantity of arms in the possession of [Page 186] each state and through these four approaches an effective method of control, (3) the rigorous system of control to be established must be centralized at Geneva. For this purpose he advocated the adoption of a system analogous to that provided for the control of the drug traffic. In so far as the question of material in stock was concerned he felt that this should not prove an insuperable obstacle to the establishment of limits upon manufacture for the latter over a relatively short period of years would effectively limit the quantity of useable weapons in the possession of a state. He pointed out that the possession of weapons in themselves was not as important as the possession of munitions making such weapons effective. The value of the latter was only for a short period and should a limitation of their manufacture be imposed it effectively established a limitation upon their possession by a state.
4. In view of the importance of the question of the abolition of private manufacture to public opinion I felt it was necessary to make statement pointing out certain of the grave problems which would be raised by its abolition. I explained that an immediate result of the abolition of private manufacture would be to constrain every state to establish public arsenals. This would involve enormous expenditure on the part of the vast majority of states. Another difficulty I explained lay in the fact that munitions were manufactured by private industry not as their exclusive product and if it were necessary to rely upon state arsenals it would thus enormously increase the cost of munitions. States without financial resources to build large arsenals or to convert already established plants would either be compelled to rely upon their neighbors or to store this material.
5. Without entering into details I expressed the earnest hope that the traffic and production of arms both private and public would be so controlled and so circumscribed as to reduce materially the production of arms. A reasonable means of control coupled with material lowering of the present level armaments would bring about marked decline in the demand for arms thus causing a corresponding decrease in their manufacture. I felt constrained to add that public opinion was very much more interested in a reduction of arms than in a mere control of the traffic in arms and an agreement for a substantial reduction of armaments and effective control and supervision with a system of licensing would automatically produce a solution of the problem of private manufacture of arms.
6. The discussion of this question will be continued in tomorrow’s meeting.
- For text, see Conference Documents, vol. ii, pp. 503–577.↩
- For minutes of the discussion, see Records of the Conference, Series B, Minutes of the General Commission, vol. ii, pp. 592–600.↩
- Leon Jouhaux, member of the French delegation; Secretary General of Confederation Générate du Travail.↩
- Cemal Hüsnü Bey.↩
- Member of the Polish delegation to the General Commission.↩
- Member of the Spanish delegation to the General Commission.↩