DOCTRINE OF ISOLATION

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21024, 28 November 1933, Page 15

DOCTRINE OF ISOLATION

REPUDIATION OF LOCARNO URGED LORD BEAVERBROOK'S VIEWS (fhom our own correspondent.) LONDON, October 19. Lord Beaverbrook, speaking at the Guildhouse on Sunday, maintained that Great Britain had the right to repudiate the Locarno Treaty. "Does this country want, to take part if war breaks out?" he asked. The Government, speaking through Mr Baldwin, had intimated that the Treaty of Locarno was regarded as of the same importance as the treaty guaranteeing Belgium for which the country went to war in 1914. ''The right to repudiate the Treaty of Locarno is clear and decisive," Lord Beaverbrook said. "Locarno was entered into for the purpose of enabling the armed nations of Europe to scrap their war materials. Instead of disarmament the French resources for making war have increased. "Far from performing the conditions of the Treaty of Locarno, the French have rejected the provisions of that document consistently. The

treaty has never been observed. To have a right to say, and a duty to say, that it is a dead letter. "We must cleave to our own Empire. We must build up the strength and power of Britain so that she can maintain her people in peace and security. "Our army must be strong enough to guard our shores. Our air force must be powerful enough to remove the possibility of air attack on our great centres of population. Our naval resources must be ample to protect our trade routes. "Great Britain strong and free, in union with the Dominions, relying on her own might for her defence, and on tightening the bonds of fiscal unity with the Empire for her prosperity—that is the vision which we oppose to the perilous internationalism of Locarno."