}
prohibition to cover aircraft and bayonets, swords and lances,
and at the same time an open general licence was issued
permitting the export of those articles to all destinations
except Abyssinia. The opportunity was taken to include
separately in the prohibition certain classes of war material
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which had previously been regarded as falling within the classes
specified in the 1921 Order. The text of the Order, which remains
in force to-day, is given in Annex B.
The Arms Traffic Conventions.
12. The 1919 Arms Traffic Convention (Cmd.414) signed at
St. Germain-en-Laye.
Under Article 1 of this Convention, the
High Contracting Parties undertook to prohibit the exportation of
a short list of "arms of war", except under licence. Under
Article 2, they undertook also to prohibit the export of firearms
and ammunition, other than arms and munitions of war, to certain
specified zones. These included the zones covered by the Brussels
Act of 1890 relating to the slave trade. The Convention also
provided for the annual publication of certain statistics of
licences issued.
The export from the United Kingdom of the arms
to which the Convention related was already prohibited, so that,
if the Convention had been ratified, no further action on this
score would have been necessary so far as this country was
concerned.
The Convention was, in fact, never ratified; but
His Majesty's Plenipotentiaries had signed the Protocol which
reads as follows:-
"At the moment of signing the Convention of even date relating to the trade in arms and ammunition, the under- signed Plenipotentiaries declare in the name of their respective Governments that they would regard it as contrary to the intention of the High Contracting Parties and to the spirit of this Convention that, pending the coming into force of the Convention, a Contracting Party should adopt any measure which is contrary to its provisions."
It was in accordance with the obligations which His Majesty's
Government had assumed under the Protocol that export of non-
military firearms and ammunition to the areas specified in the
Convention was excepted from the Open General Licence of 1919.
5