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to destroy the armaments which they had built up. He
 
wondered whether the first practical step might not be a
 
binding agreement not to replace certain categories of
 
offensive armaments when they became obsolete. I said
 
I believed that the suggestion he made was one of very
 
great practical importance, but that I wondered if it
 
was possible to conceive a peaceful Europe, in which any
 
real feeling of confidence existed, so long as existing
 
armaments continued, and particularly the existing types
 
of offensive bombing planes. I said I believed that it
 
was aviation of the bombing type which was in great part
 
responsible for the present situation on both sides of
 
the Rhine.
 
     The King then said that when he first came to the
 
throne forty years ago he had possessed the belief that
 
trained diplomats were a menace to the cause of peace,
 
and that by undertaking international negotiations through
 
other types of men, a more satisfactory result could be
 
obtained. He said that he had reached the conclusion
 
years ago that that early belief on his part was pro-
 
foundly mistaken. He said that he had always felt that
 
if President Wilson, Lloyd George and, for that matter,
 
the Italian. Government, had sent trained representatives,
 
skilled in diplomatic negotiations, to the Conference at
 
Paris, very much more satisfactory results would have
 
been achieved. He spoke of the Italian problems arising
 
out of the Versailles Treaty as being due entirely to the
 
fact that the Chiefs of Government assembled in Paris had
 
sent unqualified men to Italy, and to the lands bordering
 
upon the Adriatic, in order to make authoritative surveys
 
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