RESTRICTION OF ARMAMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 107, 6 May 1913, Page 4

RESTRICTION OF ARMAMENTS.

GERMANY'S BEPIiT. NO CHAXCE OF WORKING ARRANGEMENTS. (From Our Special Correspottdent.) LONDON, April 2. Germany's reply to Mr. Winston C3turchill'6 appeal for a halt in the "mad race of armaments" has not been long in taking a definite shape. It is contained in the further,: details of the new iierman naval and military proposals which' Englishmen have 'teen permitted to read, mark, and inwardly digest-during- the pact two or three days. Germany's answer ia-.to devote a war levy of no l<*=s. than .£5;>,000.000 to Bpecial military measures, capital expenditure on fortresses, aircraft . and barracks, and to rake the peace strength of , her army from UIiO.OUO. at which it stood a couple of yeare ago, to something between 825,000 aud 000.000 men.

•It is the old, old story. Britain, talks of peace and Germany prepares for war. Friendly ventures on our part seem fated to meet with si mailed-tlst rebuff. In 1907 the British Government offered to reduce its naval programme from three Dreadnoughts to two. Germany's answer was to introduce a new Navy Act, raising her programme from three Dreadnoughte to lour. In 1008 the British Government actually laid down only two Dreadnoughts. Germany's reply was to begin seven; .indeed, whenever this country has made advances to Germany, she has responded by increasing her military and naval efforts. Germany pays no attention to words, but marches forward relentlessly to predetermined ends, whatever they may be.

The first and most interesting point to note in the new German military programme ijf the proposed tremendous outlay on her air servic?. During the next five years a sum of over £15,01)0,000 will be spent upon military aircraft and their necessary adjuncts. This meane an annual ontlayof £3,000,000, and goes far beyond the predictions even of those who have been trying for months past to instil in the Britiih people's mind the fact that if Germany couki not rule the wavee, she meant to be mistress in the air, and that Britain's peri] was aerial ra-ther than naval. The policy adopted by the German military authorities certainly justifies all that thoec "alarmists" have said, and is, indeed, significajit in the extreme. .

It proves that-the Gorman authorities attach the greatest possible importance to aerial supremacy, and mean to secuTe it for their country at all costs. The steps they are now preparing to take throw Britain's efforts in the shade. The 'British Army and Navy Estimates provide for an expenditure of about £850,000 during the current year on air aerrices, and at the time the estimates were framed it seemed adequate to most people outside aerial alarmists, ■who were seeking for "at least a million." This was the amount beyond •which it was confidently predicted Germany (would not go in expenditure on her air services. But she has trebled ilie rniriron aod.thf disproportion-between 'her proposed outlay and ours is so great that in all probability oar naval and military authorities 'wili quickly reverse the figures ior their air services which they have already submitted to Parliament,. and, Eke Oliver Twist, ksk for more. The difference between Germany's proposed expenditure-on aeriail services and Great Britain's is so great"thafteven our least alarmist newspapers are suggesting the advisability-of revising our estimates for naval end military a-eriai service, the fact being patent to evervbodv who cares to think at all about the matter, that with the. coming of dependable aircraft British insularity must cease, and that it is just as essential for this country to be able to hold its own in tbn air as to command the seas. As the " Daily Mail " puts it, the vast development -of "the German air service is something more than a menace to Continental Powers. Tt is, in the words w%ieh XapoTeon used of Antwerp more than a century a "pistol held at the head of Britain."