DID NOT CAPITULATE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 128, 26 November 1938, Page 9

DID NOT CAPITULATE

BRITAIN AT MUNICH

"MOST FAR-SEEING ACTION

POSSIBLE"

THE WORLD SAVED

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.) LONDON, November 25. It was untrue, declared the Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, addressing the Cambridge University Conservative Association today, that Mr. Chamberlain had capitulated to Herr Hitler because Britain's defence forces were too weak. Britain's re-armament, he said, had reached a stage at which the country would have been unshakeable in the early days of a war and irresistible as it progressed. He admited that setbacks had occurred in the course of the European appeasement policy, and warned his hearers to expect disappointment. The Munich agreement, he declared, had saved the world from the greatest calamity in history, and Mr. Chamberlain's action was the most far-seeing then possible. "We should act similarly," said the Minister, "if we were again facing the same situation. The Empire, far from drifting into decline, is beginning a new chapter of greatness." A standard plan for air-raid precaution trenches, continued Sir Samuel,

was being issued by the Government to local authorities, who, if they adopted it, would receive a grant towards expenditure. He urged them to proceed with the work immediately, using unemployed labour.