The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and Sun. THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1931. BRITAIN'S AIR ESTIMATES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 66, 19 March 1931, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and Sun.

THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1931. BRITAIN'S AIR ESTIMATES.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that toe can do.

No doubt the people who hold that it is the duty of Britain to lead the way toward universal disarmament by sacrificing and surrendering all her possible means of defence by land, sea, and air will look askance at the proposal to vote over £18,000,000 for the Air Estimates this year. But the Minister in charge is able to make out an extremely strong case for the vote. Britain now " stands fifth in first line strength among the Air Powers of the world," and unless she is to fall quite hopelessly behind her rivals and possible enemies she must make some attempt to strengthen this important arm of our defensive system. Within the last five years the United States have increased their air expenditure by 150 per cent, France has •increased hers by 130 per cent, Italy's expenditure has risen 40 per cent; but Britain's outlay for this purpose is actually 1 per cent lower than it was five years ago. Unless the nation is content to believe with the optimists that the necessity for national defence has vanished for ever from the earth, there can be no reasonable opposition, not even on the score of economy, to the very moderate outlay suggested by Mr. Montague.

Indeed, it is possible to go much further than this, and to argue that the vote now included in the Estimates is altogether inadequate to the needs of Britain and the Empire. There can be no doubt that Britain has taken up with sincere enthusiasm the cause of disarmament. The reductions that she has effected in her naval and military strength are quite unparalleled elsewhere; in fact, as the Secretary of State for War put the case last week when introducing the Army Estimates, " the enormous reductions made by Britain have not been reproduced in other countries." Miss Lee, one of the " Clydesiders," evidently thought that she had disposed of the Army Estimates with the pathetic protest that " the killing force of the Army would be greater than it was last year." But is hysterical emotionalism of this sort to play a decisive part in the solution of the vast problem of national defence? So far as the Air Estimates are concerned, Sir Samuel Hoare did well to draw attention to " the rapid growth of the destructive power of the air arm" in other countries, and to remind members that the Covenant of the League and the Pact of Paris " cannot guarantee the country against the possibility of an instantaneous air attack." From this point of view, and in regard to her Imperial responsibilities, Britain's relative inferiority ■in aerial strength places her in a most dangerous position which seems to require the prompt attention of Parliament.