EMPIRE DEFENCE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 78, 15 March 1935, Page 11

EMPIRE DEFENCE

House of Lords Debate By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright LONDON, March 14. In the House of Lords, Lord Ponsonby initiated the defence debate by moving that the White Paper would increase international difficulties and armaments competition and weaken the collective security inherent in the League covenant. Lord Ponsonby expressed the opinion that people were justifiably alarmed lest this was only, the beginning of a new policy of rearmament —driving the last nail in the coffin of tho Disarmament Conference. Lord Reading said that Britain, from tho beginning, had led in the promotion of pacification of the world and had taken risks for this end which other* had not taken. No nation in the world believed that the Government was in anywise imperilling peace, but tho rearmament of Europe while we had yearly reduced our armaments had created a new situation. Lord Lothian said that Herr Hitler himself had recently assured him l p er * sonally that Germany was prepared to abolish air bombers altogether if everybody would do likewise, this formidable fact providing an opportunity for the success of the air convention. The Archbishop of Canterbury said that if the White Paper alone represented the Government policy, or meant the abandonment of the attempt to seek general limitation of armaments, he would be troubled, but critics should remember the Government’s encouragement of regional agreements for mutual defence and their earnest detire to bring Germany back to the League, without which general diearmament was impossible. Those devoted to League disarmament would not advance their cause by suggesting that the White Paper meant the abandonment of Britain’s adherence to the League. Lord Hailsham, Secretary for War, replying, said the support of League collective eecurity did not mean that we were to render ourselveg incapable of defence. The Government was proposing the minimum forces necessary to protect the country and tho Empire. Lord Ponsonby’s motion was negatived without a division.