ARMY REDUCTION

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 51, 29 August 1922, Page 7

ARMY REDUCTION

LORD ESHER'S PROPOSAL

THE DANGER TO THE EMPIRE.

(no* OUR OWN C01WIIP0MBINT.)

I • LONDON", 13th. July. Some astonishment has been shown regarding a proposal made by Lord Esher, the British representative on the League of Nations' Armaments Reduction Commission. This body has been meeting in Paris, and it is said that Lord Esher has | made the proposal that under a scheme of military reduction the British Army should be reduced to ; 90,000 > men, ranking 30,000 below the armies of Poland, Italy, and Greece, and being placet! on the same footing as the armies of Czechoslovakia, Jugo-Slavia, Rumania, Holland, Spain, and Switzerland. ■ Lord Robert Cecil, who is a member of the Mired Commission on the Redaction'of Armaments, explained the matter by saying: "All that has been done about Lord Esher's proposal is that they have gone to a committee to be summoned, and no opinion was expressed upon them by anyone. As far as the figures contained in Lord Esher's' proposals were concerned, it was at the outset admitted that we had not got tr a stage at which we could consider figures, and Lord Esher himself withdrew them. This Commission was a body of advisers not repres&ting any Government. It contained soldiers, sailors, politicians, diplomatists, and financiers, and it had been asked to advise the Council of the League generally upon the question of disarmament or the reduction of armaments. We held several meetings in Paris, ajnd Commissions were appointed to examine various proposals submitted to us. The proceedings were entirely harmonious. The most important proposal submitted included one by Admiral Seagrave, the object of which was to extend the principle of tbr Washington Naval Treaties to the smaller Powers which were not represented at Washington. That proposal was generally approved and the details are being examin-' ed by experts. Draft convention^ with the same'object were submitted by experts from France and Italy, and a report on them will be made at the next meeting of the Commission on Ist September, and then transmitted to the. Council."

The question was raised in the House of Commons, but Mr. Lloyd George said that Lord Esher had no,authority to make proposals or demands on behalf of the British Government. He did not act in any way on behalf of the Government, neither did hV receive instructions from it. '

General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston, in a letter to " The Times " to-day, points out the importance of giving publicity to the Prime Minister's reply. \ The proposal made by Lord Esher, he says, " is a specious proposal fraught with great danger to our huge and scattered Empire. Our present Regular Army is in no way a national army, and it is neither intended for war in Europe nor organised, as are Continental peace armies, so that it can expand automatically" without change of system into th© national war army. How can 'our army, whose strength is; determined solely by the duties it hae to perform in policing the Empire, in maintaining internal security, and in safeguarding our far-flung frontiers, which in most parts are in contact with semi-civilised, turbulent, antl potentially dangerous tribes and nations, be compared with a peace-time national army raised by universal service foi the defence against other similar armiesypf the homeland frontiers of States like Rumania, Holland, Greece, Jugo-Slavia, and Czecho-Slovakia? Yet to our Army, the Empire's police, and to the national armies of these States the same co-effi-cient and the same total strength is assigned'by the scheme under review. Our Regular 'Army is already ' dangerously weak for its work of policing ourMrontierg and preserving internal security. This is recognised both by the Government and by all who have studied the subject. It was only thf financial risk entailed by maintaining the small Regular Army that we had in 1913 that forced Parliament to take the risk of reducing the Army from its pre-wai strength to the strength now authorised. Yet this proposal, if correctly reported, would reduce the strength of our Army and Air Force to less than a qnartsr of the prei sent strength of the Army alone! • I itrust that all those- who have the safety and welfare of our country at .heart will unite in letting the Government know that the -great bulk of the Nation is sojid in, its determination that no sanction shall be given to this specious and dangerous scheme." •■'