ARMAMENT RACE

Grey River Argus, 6 August 1937, Page 12

ARMAMENT RACE

BRITISH NAVY AND AIR FORCE. I Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] LONDON, August 4. Hector Bywater, in the ‘'Telegraph,” states he expects the 1938 naval rearmament programme probably, to be equal to the extensive building in 1937, when 664,000 tons are being constructed, believed to be a peacetime record. He adds; Well-informed circles anticipate that in 1938 three to five further battleships, six or seven cruisers, and v n proportionate quota of destroyers, submarines, and smaller craft will be constructed. There will also be another increase in personnel of at least 125,000, including the manning of the largely increased Fleet Air Arm, in which during the next four years aircraft borne by carriers and catapault-ships will rise from 230 to 550. Beginning on August 9, uninterrupted waves of bombers will swoop on London for three days in the biggest test of the city’s aircraft defences. It will be known after the raid, in which four hundred planes will participate, whether London can be made into another Guernica. ROOSEVELT AGAINST POISON GAS. [Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] WASHINGTON, August 4. Mr Roosevelt, in a message to Congress, said: "I am doing everything in my power to discourage the use of gasses and other chemicals in wars between nations. I don’t want the United States to do anything to aggrandise or ’ make permanent any special , bureau of the navy and army engaged in chemical studies. I hope the time will come when the chemical warfare service can be entirely abolished.” WAR ANNIVERSARY. PARIS, August 4. At the commemoration of Britain’s entry into the war, the British Legionnaries marched to the Unknown Soldier’s Tomb, participating in the ceremony of rekindling the flame. Over two hundred thousand from Britain visited the war graves during the holiday season. Nearly three thousand more bodies, British, French, and German, were found on the Western Front last year.