residuum left.  That residuum could only be required for one purpose—­to protect the country in question from foreign aggression.  When you had gone thus far in your reasoning, you had obviously got into the zone where bargaining becomes possible, because it is obvious that by agreement you can get the force by which a nation is liable to become reduced.  That line of approach received the general blessing at the second Assembly of the League of Nations.  Things began to move, primarily because the Dominion of South Africa took a keen interest in this problem of the reduction of armaments, and South Africa appointed Lord Robert Cecil as its representative, and instructed him to press the matter on, and he did.  The Assembly definitely instructed this temporary mixed Commission that by the time the third Assembly met plans should be prepared and concrete proposals put on paper.

WASHINGTON

Soon after that came the Washington Conference—­a great landmark in the history of this problem.  For reasons I need not go into in detail, the naval problem is very much easier than the military or air problem.  You have as the nucleus of naval forces something quite definite and precise—­the battleship—­and it also happens that that particular unit is extremely costly, and takes a long time to build, and no man has yet ever succeeded in concealing the existence of a battleship.  There you had three important points—­a large and important unit in the possession of everybody concerned, very costly, so that by reducing it you make great reductions in expenditure.  There was no possibility of avoiding an agreement about the construction of battleships, and it is to these facts mainly that the happy results of the Washington Conference were due.

But for the furtherance of the problem the point is this.  The Washington Conference definitely established the principle of reduction of armaments on a great ratio.  The ratio for battleships between Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy, was settled as to 5, 5, 3, and 1.75.  They all agreed on a definite ratio.  All agreed to scrap a certain number of ships, to bring their tonnage down to a certain figure, and by doing that relatively they were left in the same position as before, with this advantage—­that they at once obtained an enormous reduction in expenditure on armaments.

That opened up a new line of approach for the attack on this problem from the military and air standpoint.  And the next development took place in February this year at the meeting of the Temporary Mixed Commission on armaments, when the Esher proposals were presented.  There has been a great deal of talk about the Esher proposals, and I am glad of it, because the one thing wanted in this question is public interest.  The Esher proposals were an endeavour to apply to land armaments this principle of reduction on a great ratio.  And the line taken was this.  It was necessary