GERMAN ARMAMENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1934, Page 7

GERMAN ARMAMENTS

INCREASED EXPENDITURE

EXPLANATION TO BRITAIN

IBBITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.]

RUGBY, April 1G

The note addressed by the German Foreign Minister to the British Ambassador at Berlin, in reply to an enquiry regarding increases in German naval and military air estimates, was presented to the Commons, by Sir J. Simon, in reply to a question. The note stated: In regard to the estimates for the army, increased expenditure is necessary for preparations due to take place in the course of the budget year for the conversion of the Reichswehr into a short service army. The allocation of these sums in the budget for this purpose arises from the state of negotiation in regard to the disarmament question.

i The increased expenditure for the i- naval budget is due to the increas- ■ ing cost of the systematic renovai tion of long since obsolete units of the German Fleet, the replacement of which, partly on the ground of security for the crews, can no longer be postponed. The budget of the Air Ministry cannot be regarded as an armament budget. It consists of budgets for air transport and air protection. The estimated increase expenses for air transport is due to replacement of obsolete aeroplane material of the private German air transport company, Lufthansa, which as in other countries, receives government subsidies to the expenses necessaiw for increased security in the air and for the installation of lighting and wireless direction finding systems, owing to winter operation and night-flying on long distance lines, and to the development of over the sea air transport, and of scientific investigation in the -sphere of air transport generally. Estimates for air protection amount to 50 million reichstmarks. In last year’s budget, only 1.3 million reichstmarks were provided for this purpose, since organisation of air protection was, at that time,’•only in its first stage. The newly developed organisation is devoted to the protection of civil population against air attack. Its activity consists in the erection of splinter and gasproof cellars, training of squads for rendering harmless of poisonous gases, development of fire extinguishing system, training of special squads for warnings, technical repairs, and the rendering harmless of poisonous gases, and other similar measures.

FRENCH AERIAL DANGER.

LONDON, April 17.

That France must awaken to the air peril is the subject of an article in the “Armee Moderne,” with a preface by Marshal Petain. The article says: “Paris is the most vulnerable capital in Europe. It has 154 inhabitants to the acres, compared with London’s 60 to the acre.”

It declares that Germany now possesses 800 planes that are capable of immediate action, including 600 which can be used as bombers, beingsufficient to attack, at a single blow, the cities of Metz, Verdun, Nancy, Strasbourg, Mezieres, Amiens, Paris, Dijon, and even Bordeaux and Brest, and other towns similarly distant

from Germany; while the Dohyphenx planes and other passenger planes can be used for the secret landing of storm troops to destroy railway junctions, bridges, factories and similar vital points/ The newest air bombs weighing two tons, consist of 70 per cent, of high explosives, these enabling the German air fleet to carry to any French town a destructive power equivalent to a battleship’s twelveinch guns firing continuously for eight hours.

FRENCH REFUSAL. (Recd. April 18, 1 p.m.) PARIS, April 17. The Government is handing the disarmament reply to Britain, to-night. It is understood that, while expressing admiration for Britain’s increased understanding of the requirements of French security, the reply refuses to agree to the legislation of Germany’s rearmament, in violation of the treaties, adding that, as direct disarmament conversations do not offer a prospect of agreement, it is useless to continue the talks.

LESSER POWERS’ PROPOSAL RUGBY, April 17. A memorandum on the work of the Disarmament Conference, put forward by five Powers, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Switzerland, is under consideration in London, and is recognised as an important contribution by the lesser Powers to the cause of disarmament. The insistence which is placed in the memorandum on the reaffirmation of the vital necessity of concluding a convention which provides for a reduction in armaments, and not merely for their limitation, is regarded as timely, and accords to the proposals put forward by the British Governments. The “Manchester Guardian” says

that the memorandum of the lesserPowers makes a modest group of practical proposals, which should if anything can do so, help to save the Disarmament Conference from shipwreck. It adds: “The signatories are particularly well fitted, by their position in recent history, and their racial composition, to observe and argue without prejudice or passion. They have done so. These former neutral Powers have done service to the Conference and to Europe.” ANGLO-AUSTRIAN FRIENDSHIP. RUGBY, April 16. At the opening of the Austrian Exhibition in London, Lord Stanhope warmly welcomed the Exhibition, declaring: It will enable us to acquire fuller knowledge of Austria, and knowledge is the foundation of understanding, as understanding is of friendship. That is the spirit which it is essential to cultivate between all nations to-day.