THE LEAGUE: Vendors of Death

Released last month, but so quietly that correspondents covering the Geneva Disarmament Conference failed to note it, was a League of Nations report showing which countries are the worst offenders as exporters of armaments & munitions— or rather which were the worst in 1930, the last year covered by the League's discreet report. World's worst offender was Great Britain which did 30% of the total arms peddling, next France (13%), third the U. S. (12%). The report, extremely conservative, estimated the total volume of the arms traffic in 1930 at only $55,200,-ooo, called attention to the fact that this represented deplorable growth from the 1925 figure $48,000,000. Biggest buyer of arms in 1930, according to the League, was China (14.6%). This year Japan is keeping munitions plants humming, notably in France and among her "satellites" such as Czechoslovakia. Last week, despite the fact that Brazil is still tasting the dregs of a coffee crisis, candid Provisional President Getulio Vargas authorized the purchase of two cruisers, eight gunboats, seven submarines, six submarine tenders. The present Brazilian navy consists chiefly of two dread-naughts, three cruisers, one coast defense vessel, ten destroyers, four submarines, one salvage ship. "The armament firms in every country are enjoying a little boom." observed London's New Statesman & Nation. "The Board of Trade has published some interesting figures about our arms exports to China and Japan. . . . The amount sent by us to Japan in March 1932, was £40,828 and in April £40,158. China has not been so good a customer. Her average imports from this country from August, 1931, to February, 1932, were £4,416 per month; in March the figure rose to £21,-939, but dropped in April to £2,111."