DISARMAMENT

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21117, 19 March 1934, Page 9

DISARMAMENT

in :ur id:.o« or tii .'Ris? Sir.—Pacifists and advocates of iot.il disarmament are usually derided a<= simple, illogical idealists, whose itita<= will be all right in the millemum but have no place in the present workaday world. In view of this fact 1 call the attention of your readers to a statement made by Mr R. A. Eden. Lord Privy Seal, during a speech on his disarmament negotiations, reported i:i •'The Press" this morning. "But he did not believe that even a manifold increase in existing armaments would alone be sufficient to ensure our national security. Competitive armaments in themselves were no security. We had them in I!H4, and thev availed us nothing in preventing the war. By standing on our security in armaments we could not flatter ourselves that we should then have realised the luxury of isolation." Mr Eden is obviously of the opinion that armaments cannot give protection. This is what pacifists have maintained for enough against hostile criticism. In the face of that statement, who is the illogical person?—the pacifist who maintains that we cannot be protected against modern implements of war and therefore advocates total disarmament and a search for peace through just relations with the rest of the world: or the politician who admit.-: that armaments cannot give protection, yet pushes ahead with a policy of rearmament? It seems to me that the real enemies of society are those who are wasting £1,000.000.000 of our substance yearly on armaments, yet admit that they cannot sive safety to a stricken world.

Perhaps some of your x-;irk>is who are staunch advocates of an iin-reare U' armaments will help ine to scivo the problem of the dangerous iiJotjic of Mr R. A. Kdcn and h'.s peers.-Yours, tl " ' 1.. A. KFFOFID. March !R. VSM.