"Recommending to the Council of the League of Nations the {160} desirability of conferring at once with the several Governments concerned with a view to securing a general reduction of the crushing burdens which, on their existing scale, armaments still impose on the impoverished peoples of the world, sapping their resources and imperilling their recovery from the ravages of war." It also requested its two Advisory Commissions to set to work at once to collect the necessary information regarding the problem referred to in Article 8 of the Covenant. From the beginning the work of the Temporary Mixed Commission and of the Permanent Advisory Commission revealed the infinite complexity of the question. The Second Assembly limited its resolutions to the important, but none the less (if one may say so) secondary, questions of traffic in arms and their manufacture by private enterprise. It only touched upon the questions of military expenditure and budgets in the form of recommendations and, as regards the main question of reduction of armaments, it confined itself to asking the Temporary Mixed Commission to formulate a definite scheme. It was between the Second and Third Assemblies that the latter Commission, which was beginning to get to grips with the various problems, revealed their constituent elements. In its report it placed on record that: "The memory of the world war was still maintaining in many countries a feeling of insecurity, which was represented in the candid statements in which, at the request of the Assembly, several of them had put forward the requirements of their national security, and the geographical and political considerations which contributed to shape their policy in the matter of armaments." At the same time, however, the Commission stated: "Consideration of these statements as a whole has clearly revealed not only the sincere desire of the Governments to reduce national armaments and the corresponding {161} expenditure to a minimum, but also the importance of the results achieved. These facts"--according to the Commission--"are indisputable, and are confirmed moreover, by the replies received from Governments to the Recommendation of the Assembly regarding the limitation of military expenditure." That is the point we had reached _two years ago_; there was a _unanimous desire to reduce armaments_. Reductions, though as yet inadequate, had been begun, and there was a _still stronger desire to ensure the security of the world_ by a stable and permanent organisation for peace. That was the position which, after long discussions, gave rise _at the Third Assembly to the famous Resolution XIV_ and at the Fourth Assembly _to the draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance_, for which we are now substituting the Protocol submitted to the Fifth Assembly. What progress has been made during these four years?