1939 IN ENGLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 24, 30 January 1939, Page 6

1939 IN ENGLAND.

POLITICS AND TRADE.

A.R.P. CRITICISM CONTINUES.

(By JOHX MULGAX.)

LONDOX, January 3. Europe's message® for 1939 have not so far been entirely cheering. Field-Marshal Goering promises the Reich another year of hard work; Mr. Chamberlain says everything is all right; the Archbishop of Canterbury says further crises are imj>ending. The Beaverbrook Press says be of good cheer, spend freely. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon, fays trade is oil the up grade. This last point is perhaps one on which it is mi»t important that we should be clear. I lie future of England—not necessarily of the British Empire—depend* on two things: its ability to retain economic power, and the ability of its Government to defend its citizens from air attack. Sir John Simon's optimistic ractwage about trade conditions would be more reassuring were it not that similar statements were made at this same time last year, when, the Cnancellor now admits, England wa/i alieady half way into a serious decline. This slump, which bewail in the summer of 1937, was only arrested a few months ago by iccovcrv in America, and tliin recovery may be of only a temporary nature. The basic facts, which no theory of the trade cycle can destroy. arc that Britain has lost heavilv in her overs 'as market- during the last two years, first of all in China, then in Central and Xazi-doiniuated Europe. In South America Dr. Kehacht is waging an economic war which has cut British export figures in half during the last year. These are tilings that cannot lie lightly set aside. Xor is there much satisfaction to !k> had from the bland Ministerial assumption that a gigantic rearmament burden can Ih> borne without some lowering of the standard of living. Younger Conservatives. Opposed to Sir John Simon in more ways than one is Mr. K. S. Hudson, Secretary for Overseas 1 rade. who is prepared to fight (ieruianv economically and any other way. His militancy is evidence of the growing confidence of the younger men ill tlie Conservative party who, since I last wrote, have shown their hand again ill a revolt against the two Defence Ministers. Mr. Hore-Belisha i and Sir Thomas liiskip. Behind them are still the eneigelic figures of Lord Baldwin and his protegee Mr. Eden, Mr. Dull Cooper and Mr. Winston Churchill, working and planning for a new "National Government" which would take power away from the "old men"—as they are called—of the Inner Cabinet, and put mi: end to the policy of appeasement. Their hands were strengthened just before Christinas by startling evidence of anti-Chamberlain read ions in the City. There the annual appeal for Conservative party funds was met in many cases with ail unusual refusal. Business men who applauded Munich and "peace in our time" have seen all too quickly the disastrous loss (if markets which it entailed, and the still more disastrous fall of the jßiuud sterling. The drain of capital from the pound to the dollar has, in fact, been serious. If the small men follow the big men, who are normally one jump ahead, and start investing their surplus money in America, the position may become more serious still within the next three months. First enemy of the attack, Mr. Hore-Belisha lias countered with some rapid publicity, a field in which he is adept. But the "revolutionaries" are goin-? further than that, however. Their charge 'is that after the deplorable state of England's defences was revealed in September nothing has been done to remedy it, to put the nation on a war basis and to protect its civilians. Air Raid Shelters. Sir John Anderson's ne\v Air Raid Precaution measures are very like the gas masks that were issued to the public in September— they are not much good except as evidence of general goodwill. The main part of the scheme provides for semi-circular steel shelters which the householder can put up—in a few minutes —against the side of his house. (Criticism from Lord Wolmer in the House, asking why bomb-proof shelters like those in Spain could not lie provided; but then Lord Wolmer is chairman of the Cement Manufacturers' Association.) These steel shelters will not stop a half-ton bomb dropped fifty yards away from blowing them in and probably pulling the house down on top of it all. They are quite useless for the crowded tenement and flat-dwelling quarters of London. The hard fact remains that until something drastic and far-reaching in the way of A.R.P. is done, England will remain defenceless against the diplomacy of a threatened air attack.

It 16 a curious reflection that five yeare .Tin. when Hitler first came to power, Britain and France were in a position to dominate the Continent of Europe. When Hitler's jjenerals marched into the Rliineland in 193(i they had orders to retire if the French mobilised. The process by which this position of predominance and with it collective security have been destroyed may safely be left to the historian. (The beet short guide at the moment Iβ probably Doujrla* Reed's book, which draws a revealing picture of the combination of inertia and belief in Fascism as a protection against Socialism which brought us to this present pase. Douplas Reed is a journalist of Conservative leaning who resigned from "The Times"' in September and now writes for the Liberal "Xewe Chronicle.") But that this should be combined with a failure to protect the country efficiently is almost unbelievable.