CO129-552-6 Traffic of arms to China 2-1-1935 - 27-12-1935 — Page 73

}

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

72

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