'League of Nations, Conference for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War, Geneva, 17th June 1925' [‎55v] (117/138)

22
Importance to
India of control
of transit stated
by Sir P. Cox.
Statement by
the President or
the question for
decision. _
would be imposed by the Article on certain countries, notably his own,,
which form sectors on one or more great international routes, and urged the
Conference not to impose on High Contracting Parties duties which they
could not well perform. Mr. Burton (United States of America) strongly
deprecated in the name of his Government any infringement of the principle
of freedom of communication by sea—though he disarmed the obvious-
criticism by admitting that the United States Government made an exception,
and were firmly determined to maintain the exception in respect of liquor
traffic ; and he frankly declared that the United States Government would
refuse to undertake the immense task of holding up the volume of traffic
through the Panama Canal for the purpose of searching for suspect cargoes
of arms. Preference was expressed generally for the British amended
Article over the original Article 5 ; but it also was subjected to severe
criticism, by Mr. Matsuda, who dilated on the difficulties involved in
legislating for search in transit and deprecated making any special provision
in regard to it; by M. de Palacios, on the ground that though in a Convention
purporting to regulate traffic it was difficult to omit all lefeience to transit,
the object served by the British amendment was so restricted as to be
al most a matter of internal legislation in the British Empire, not suitable
for treatment in an international instrument; by M. Dupriez, on the ground
that it seemed either to reassert unnecessarily existing sovereign rights
which the Conference had no competence to touch, or by implication annulled
the power of a High Contracting Party to detain a cargo in tiansio to a
destination under a sovereignty other than its own ; and by other delegates
on other grounds. The Italian delegate objected to the Temporaiy Mixed
Commission's Article, and in a less degree to the British, on the ground that
to go out of the way to justify the detention of vessels was tantamount to
encouraging a form of action which, taken as it usually is only when a state
of tension exists between Governments, tends to exacerbate an already acute
situation, and on the ground, moreover, that the manufacturing firms ot tne
detaining States would be afforded an opening for engineering unfan
competition with foreign rivals whose goods they might contrive to get detained.
Tewfik Bey (Turkey) went so far in his opposition to the Temporary Mixed
Commission's Article as to move an amendment securing importing btates
from any interference en route with consignments of arms which had duly
complied with the prescribed conditions for export; and similar though less
extreme views were urged by the Persian and Chinese delegates.
63. Sir P. Cox intervened with a speech in which he described the
difficulties with which the Government of India and His Majesty s Navy had
had to cone, in attempting to put down the illicit traffic in arms by native
vessels carrying each a small cargo, difficulties which would almost entire y
have disappeared had the right been clearly established ot searching m
transit larger vessels suspected of conveying large consignments, at a point
before their cargoes were dispersed among the smaller distributing agents.
Some delegates seemed to show a certain reaction to this attempt to bimg
the discussion back from a diffuse discussion of vague generalities to a
consideration of realities ; but so many of the delegates who had addre=se
themselves to the many different facets of the problem had tabled iormai
amendments that the President suggested that the discussion, and the
eventual decision of the Committee, should be limited to tnree questions
principle :—
(iV Was the Conference in favour of instituting control over consignments
in transit or not ? (2) If so, should this control be obligatory on
High Contracting Parties or exercisable at their discretion, ana
(3) Should it apply to consignments in transit to any and every
designation, or only to the limited category of destinations envisaged
by the British amendment ?
64. This suggestion was adopted ; but when the discussion was resumed
it again tended to become discursive, though the American delegate ma
it clear that he would answer the lirst question in the negative, and the re
delegate declared plainly that his Government would object to an Aitici
establishing control of transit on three grounds
are of a somewhat petty nature) : firstly, the probability of delay to g