HASTENING TO ARM

Evening Star, Issue 22413, 10 August 1936, Page 1

HASTENING TO ARM

BRITAIN’S NEW COURSE HER SENSE OF SECURITY GONE One returns to England remembering last year, which brought the brilliant pageant of tho late King George’s Jubilee—what it was like then. There was sunshine in England, tho air was like champagne, the countryside was a welter of perfumed blossom, and in London the parks were all in their glory (writes Frederick Birchali to the ‘ New York Times ’).

Beyond and above all that there was great joy throughout, the land. The World War and its aftermath had faded to distant memories. The dark days of economic distress were brightening, and the bright sun of economic prosperity seemed just ahead. Never had tho people of England felt )so united, so secure, so powerful and confident as in the emotion of that week.

London is just the same outwardly now. Again there is the perfume of hawthorn and apple blossom in the surrounding countryside. The parks are a vision of painted satin against a background of ancient grey and green. Two hundred thousand tulips have been set out, and they are all in full bloom. The bluebells are out in the woods, and Kew Gardens are one great azure carpet. Outwardly it is the same England. Yet something is changed. One senses it almost immediately, and sets about seeking what it is. One realises presently that it is a matter of spirit. That conviction of strength and security that one noted last year is missing. It is so obvious after a while that nobody remembering last year could mistake it, and tho reasons are equally plain. SENSE OF UNITY GONE, ‘ The sense of unity has gone with the good King who exemplified it. and has passed, leaving a new and untried ruler, though of great promise, in his place. But it lias been wrecked not by the 1 change in the monarchy, but by political squabbles and a growing revolt against Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, who -came in with such glowing prospects only a year ago. . The sense of strength has gone because of what Italy has been able to I do to British prestige in the last year and under the threat of what another I and more powerful neighbour now i feverishly? rearming may be able to do j in the immediate future. The sense of security has gone be- ! cause after years of sliunber the people I are now awakening to the perils they face from dictatorships they hate be- | cause they are a negation of their own I British principles. They are not fully awake yet though, ! or. there would he. au uprising which I would shake this Government to its j foundations and cast into outer darkness some political dreamers of the past. But they are awakening and beginning to ask, under the stimulus of speeches in Parliament, reinforced by the nows from abroad, how the Government could have lulled them into so false a sense of security and why even now it moves so slowly. Because there is little reassurance either in the speeches or the news. The giant has been asleep and is now rousing himself, but ponderously. It is like a huge truck with tremedous power but several speeds getting into motion to catch up with another big truck that is going full tilt. For the present the. first truck is only in first speed, and it takes a lot of chugging to get the motor in motion at all. film Government has inspected some 400 factories to see what is needed to fulfil its armament requirements, and is about to inspect several hundred more.” It has enlisted 1,500 new air pilots, but they have got to be trained. Tho biggest programme since the naval race following the war has been announced, but at present it is only a plan. DEFENCE AGAINST THE AIR. A Government committee is working on plans for the defence of the civil population against air attacks, and the Government is going to order 30,000,000 gas masks. Another committee is laying plans for control of the food supply in war time, and is arranging to begin storing wheat and other essentials on a scale Britain has never known. It is one lesson learned at last from the submarine blockade of 20 years ago. But the preparations elsewhere are already far ahead. An enormous German air force was- conscripted and selected many months ago. German factories have been listed, reorganised, and turned to new uses for more than a year, and have long been going full blast. Thev ceased even making typewriters about the time the Rhineland was remilitarised. German attics were cleared of inflam.mables, and German cellars were being gnnproofcd two years ago, and gas squads have been drilling the populace in defensive measures for more than a year. As for the food supply, foreign correspondents were marvelling over the co-ordiantion of German agriculture and describing the huge land reclamation projects then under way long before Britain woke up. The British giant must show speed very soon if he is to be even half ready should the other giant decide to loose his thunders a little ahead of time.

The British difficulties are enormous* but they will have to be overcome. There is a great shortage of.the tools and gauges necessary to equip machines that will make guns and aeroplane parts. There is even a more vital shortage of skilled mechanics who can make these tools and use these machines. There is a shortage of suitable factories, and many existing ones will have to be made over.

For all this largo sums of money Tin’ll be needed, and the Government will have to furnish them. Hence nontaxes are about to bo imposed—fresh burdens added to those of a people long sighing for relief. But they will be endured. CHAMBERLAIN’S WARNING.; '“ No man hesitates to set his firefighting appliances in readiness,” the Chancellor of the Exchequer said • ui introducing the recent Budget, “ when, already he can feel the heat of the flames in his face.” It is phrases like this that are startling and stirring up the country. The people had not realised it was so close. They note, however, that the King has suddenly taken the ceremonial inspection of crack regiments and that after-dinner speakers begin to emphasise the duty of - youth to join volunteer territorial forces . lest ‘ ‘ some other plan be forced upon the Government.” . That is a plain hint at conscription. The reason—which the intelligent quickly divine—is that there is a serious slump in recruiting for the Army. The last war tooik all the glamour out of soldiering, and it left a million British dead.

Yet there still survives one typically British prejudice that is hampering ail preparations. Sir Thomas Inskiji, Minister for. the Gq-ordination of Defence, voiced it in his speech to the House of Commons, and Mr Winston Churchill promptly challenged it. These preparations must not interfere -'with trade. It is reminiscent of the defiant British slogan, “ Business as usual,-’ which was heard when the last war started, and which was quickly suppressed by eventualities. It is beginning to bo realised that trade must again be interfered with lest something more formidable snuff it out altogether. The process is being helped by tha sense of humiliation that has seeped through the nation, and it accounts in part for the national seriousness this Maytime. Since the last jubilee Britain has suffered a blow in her pride such as she has not felt since the Dutch sailed up the Thames in Charles 11. a time, and their ships patrolled the Channel with brooms at the mastheads. She has suffered it, moreover, at the hands of a nation that most Britons looked upon as a second-rate Power, lint which nevertheless has successfully defeated 31 other nations that Britain marshalled and led at Geneva. FAILURE OF BLUFF. Bluff failed against this stubborn and hard-headed antagonist. The British Fleet went to tho Mediterranean, but it is beginning to come home. Bluff did not succeed, partly because the British these days .are too pacifically minded to fight for anything but their own hearthstones; still more, because British naval and military leaders realised only too well that if tho bluff was called they ' were in no position to tackle two dictators at the same time, with tho possibility that Japan might simultaneously stir up things in. the East. This is virtually admitted how. In the days before 1914, Sir Thomas Inskip said Britain had only 'one potential enemy to consider, but now there is no limit to the possible combination against her. So the British arc playing, for time, hoping the dictatorships will behave until British rearmament has made real progress. Therein lies the explanation of the questionnaire that was addressed after long delay to Germany and that will bo anwered after some delay, while Geneva talks on and a few more months arc gained. The wistful dream of the mere hopeful is of a new European deal, with Germany back in a reformed and chastened League of Nations, reinforced by regional pacts that will give France security and evermore prevent any great Power from nurturing designs upon a weaker Power. It is a dream that envisions Stresemann as still living or a new Streseinann directing in his spirit the policy of a country that has many scores to even. But the likelihood is, and the British Ministers know it, that it is only a dream in a harsh and realistic world. It is only the optimistic who cherish it. Under harsh realities that daily mak» the dream more remote of fulfilment, the British are apprehensive and uncomfortable. It is that feeling that pervades and neutralises the pleasant aspect of ilaytime and makes it different from May of yesteryear.