500.A15A4 General Committee/103: Telegram
The Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 23—2:30 p.m.]
366. The final session of the General Commission took place this morning. Five remaining speakers expressed views with regard to the resolution, the Turkish representative declaring his abstention. Litvinoff explained his vote against the resolution in one last plea for total disarmament. As the final speech on the resolution Henderson, in his capacity as President of the Conference, took the floor to explain its advantages and stated that those who voted against the resolution were voting against the three principles stated in the preamble and against President Hoover’s plan. These three principles [Page 317] are (1) that the time has come when the world must adopt substantial and comprehensive measures of disarmament (2) that it is firmly determined to achieve a substantial reduction in armaments and (3) that it is decided, guided by the general principles underlying President Hoover’s declaration, to effect a substantial reduction of world armaments to be applied by a general convention alike to land, naval and air armaments.
A vote was then taken as to the adoption of the resolution. Both the German and Soviet delegations cast negative votes, the former explaining that he did not vote against any of the principles expressed but merely against the resolution itself, and the latter stated he voted for disarmament but against the resolution. Eight abstentions were recorded as follows: Afghanistan, Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, China, Hungary, Italy and Turkey. The Chinese delegate said that his country could agree to no measure of disarmament until the Sino-Japanese dispute has been regulated to its satisfaction. The remaining 41 delegations present [voted?] for the resolution. The Bolivian delegate in expressing his affirmative vote stressed the hope that all South American nations would be represented at the next conference and called to the attention of the Conference that one of Bolivia’s neighbors was at the present time committing acts of unwarranted aggression. The Japanese representative accepted the resolution with the reservation formulated in his speech of the previous day, to the effect that Japan considered that the air clauses of the resolution should be further studied particularly in relation to restrictions on other forms of armaments and definitely reserved its attitude on the whole question until these studies should be effected.
The President then announced an adjournment of the General Commission, stating that a plenary session of the Conference would then meet for the purpose of recommending to the various governments the extension of the armaments truce provided for in part 5 of the resolution. The roll call of the plenary session showed 49 votes in favor of the extension of the armaments truce with no contrary votes and 1 abstention which was that of China.
The Conference adjourned following the usual complimentary addresses which included a most graceful and witty tribute to the work of the President by M. Herriot and a word of appreciation by myself on the work of the Secretariat. Sir John Simon added a word of praise to the labors of Dr. Beneš rapporteur.
Prior to the adjournment the next meeting of the Bureau was definitely fixed for Wednesday, September 21st.