DEFENCE CONTROL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 144, 29 March 1928, Page 5

DEFENCE CONTROL.

CENTRALISATION OPPOSED. STATEMENT BY MR BALDWIN. (Per Press Association —Copyright.) LONDON, March 28. Replying to Sir Robert Hutchison, who on the third reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, suggested that the Imperial Defence Committee should become an executive Ministry of Defence, and apportion the funds to the Navy, Army, and Air Force, Mr Baldwin said the war problem was not one of centralisation but of co-ordinated decentralisation. Cabinet must be responsible for defence as well as for foreign and Imperial policy. The Imperial Defence Committee in case of emergency could be made a deciding instead of a consultative body. Since Lord Curzon's death he had retained the chairmanship because he recognised that it was most important that the Prime Minister must be familiar with defence problems and the higher personnel of the services. The Committee had been deputed to make detailed inquiries, and a sub-committee had been appointed of which oyer 50 were at present sitting. An Imperial defence college for training officers in the combined strategy of the Navy, Army ,and Air Force was remote. He hoped that it would be believed that the Government was not allowing the country to be unprepared. It was keening in constant view the necessary co-ordinated steps to be taken in case of emergency, of which the Dominions would be kept informed.

Lessons of the War. Mr Lloyd George said he feared we were not learning the lessons of the last war from the viewpoint of defence. The most decisive disaster of the war was the Dardanelles campaign. It would not have occurred if there had been one control, and the cost of Flanders would not have been lost if there had been more complete co-ordination of the services. The most important elements of the Great War were foreign . affairs, finance, shipping, manpower, raw materials, and the organisation of the whole country and Empire like a huge tank, crashing all opposition. What delayed victory was not the absence of a most perfect and most gallant little Army and «i magnificent Navy, but lack of equipment. Newly-raised armies needed somebody in supreme control, or the same thing would happen again. The present need was for a vital minimum force capable of rapid expansion and equipment when the need arose. The Navy,. Army and Air Force were only branches of defence, but competition in the three departments resulted' in huge expenditure. If a single Minister was given £100,000,000 a year and told to organise the whole of defence measures it would be more effective than, the present system. He hoped that Mr Baldwin would not be content with the mere suggestion of committee reports, but get someone really able to handle the thing as a whole. j Lieutenant-Colonel J. T. C. Moore-1 Brabazon (Conservative) said that Mr Baldwin's own speech was the most damning indictment of the present > system he had ever heard, and he hoped that the Government would undertake henceforth that no Chancellor of the Exchequer would present the service votes as ai whole. In a further reference to the Dardanelles, Mr Lloyd George said there was no co-operation between the Army and Navy at the Dardanelles. There was one Minister in control of one part of the attack and another in control of the other. It was only a question of a few hours at the end. Those hours could have saved a great deal more if there had been 00-opeiation—not in the sense of committees to explore the facts, but co-operation in command and direction. Thus the worst disaster of the war would have been saved. Major-General Davidson said the Government bad taken an important step in establishing an Imperial College, but they were not going fast enough. The Secretary of State for War (Sir L. Worthingtonr-Evaris), replying, denied that the Departments were careless of overlapping or competing with each other.. Where there was a suspicion of duplication, the Committee of Imperial Defence made an investigation.

There was considerable Ministerial interruption during Sir L. Worthing-ton-Evans' speech. The Bill was read a third time without division.