DISARMAMENT

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20997, 27 October 1933, Page 17

DISARMAMENT

■lO THE EDITOP. Of' TIIK WtB3S. Si r _Nelson Day presents a wonderful opportunity, on the part of the Navy League, to boost the claims of the league for larger navies and better preDarations for war. Before the world holocaust of 1914-18 the Navy Leagues of both England and Gcimany vied with one another when naval I votes were being discussed in the respective parliaments of these powers, in showing the defenceless state ot their lands and the grave dangers of invasion. In England the National Service League and the Navy League alleged to speak for the two branches of the "service," and were instrumental in helping to foment suspicion and a sense of insecurity in not only then own countries but in other nations. I venture to state that there is no greater danger to the peace of the world than organisations such as the Navy League. It has invaded the church, the schools, and the home (through the children) m the . most subtle manner, and under the plea or making our hearths and homes secure. It is not generally known in this Dominion that besides the Navy League is the power of the vast international armament ring and that the league may be made the channel by which the armament trusts disseminate their pernicious propaganda. They use unsuspecting leaguers who shout we want eight, we won't wait! whilst in the House of Commons (in 1909, the date of the now notorious Mulliner scare) members of Parliament who were prominent shareholders in some [ «f tb© great armament trusts s?es®

urging the construction of more battleships for their companies' stocks! The "Navy League Annual" might to all intents and purposes be an official publication of the English Admiralty. Whilst claiming to be nothing more than "just mere citizens, mere taxpayers," the Navy League assumes the authoritative prerogative of experts who are called upon to proclaim to the rest of the British taxpayers the requisite strength of the British navy! Not until it is realised that the armament rings have control of much of the press of Europe, of a vast network of secret agencies in every country, and of the financial "strings" in' 1 the different states will the people place their feet on the neck of this serpent. In 1921 the League of Nations commission on the private traffic in armaments issued its report, and this is what it said:—(l) Armament firms have fomented war scares; (2) have attempted to bribe government officials; (3) have disseminated false reports concerning military and naval programmes of other countries in order to stimulate armament expenditure; (4) have sought to inlluence public opinion through control of newspapers; (5) have organised international armament rings through which the armament race has been accentuated by playing off one country against another; (6) have organised international armament trusts which increased the price of armaments to governments. Every time the Navy League advocates more armaments and more battleships it is playing directly into the hands of one of the most unholy businesses the world has ever seen. And it is a matter of no small moment that we should have in our midst ministers of religion prepared to use their influence in maintaining such a traffic. Consciously or unconsciously they are perpetuating international suspicions and hatreds, they are being hoodwinked by the armament rings, they are attempting to dictate to the governments about matters of national defence, and they are propagating doctrines calculated to mislead the public into sanctioning wasteful expenditure on an unremunerative service and at the same time helping to pile up vast dividends for-the shareholders in the gigantic armament trusts.—Yours, etc., C. R. N. MACKrE. October 25, 1933.