SOME REVELATIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 December 1929, Page 5

SOM E REVELATIONS

OF BRITISH WASTE.

(United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.)

LONDON, Dec. 5. In the House of Commons, Mr E. L. Burgin (Liberal M.P. for Luton) moved a motion calling on the Government to stimuate international action for the comprehensive redu tion of armaments, expressing the opinion that the country’s defence ought to be co-ordinated.

Mr'Lloyd George said that he always had strongly favoured the co-ordina-tion of defence. No Government had ever sat down to .consider the piobleni of defence as a whole. He remarked: “How much we suffered in the Great War because not merely was there war taking place in Flinders and Gallipoli, but a Departmental war was going on at Whitehall that was far and away the greatest problem with which we had to deal! It would have been far better, from the viewpoint of efficiency, if we had one man in charge, instead of having the Admiralty , and the War Offi e grabbing in strategy. There is no doubt that when the whole story of the Dardanelles is told, it will be found that cur failure there was largely due to the lack of co-ordination, without Waning anyone in particular. It was preeminently a .strategical problem, and was only solvable by perfect harmony and co-ordination between the for es. We could have a far more efficient defensive force at less cost, if there were less jealousy amongst the departments, which are fighting each other. It is something, inconceivable that each Department should be milking the Treasury, which is fatal from the viewpoint of economy. Pres dei<t. Hoover, .the first Official of a great nation, has had the courage to remind us that the men under arms throughout the world, including the acitive reserves, pow number ten millions above the prewar total. There are far more powerful weapons of destruction in the world now than before the war.” Mr Lloyd George asked what the Government was going to do .to force the League of Nations’ Disarmament Commission^'to deal therewith. That Commission had done absolutely nothing. “It is a farce,” he said. The present British Government, backed by Mr Hoover, bad the power to insist ori something boing done. He continued: “I feel deeply on this subject as being one who has had a good deal to do with the manufacture of arms and of one who s’gned the disarmament obligations and the Peace

Treaty-, which all of the Allies have

trampled on! You are not going to JMt get peace with millions of armed men! ■ The chariot of peace cannot advance along a'road that is littered with cannon!' You must break up the machinery' of hatred, and convert it to the mechanism of peace and progress.” Sir Samuel Hoare (ex-Air Minister) said that Britain had greatly reduced her fighting forces. .< Mr Lloyd George: “I am glad of •> tne opportunity of admitting that Britain has done more than any other country in this direction.” Sir S. Hoare said that any 1 nutations of their air forces should be limited to those used for aggressive purposes. If the question of air armaments were kept separate, they might at first seek an agreement for Anglo-Franco-Italian parity. •'Mr Alexander, replying to the debate, maintained thiqt no Government had done more than the present one to stimulate international feeling on disarmament. The sacrifice of its armaments by one country one would not solve the problem. The solution would be found when all of the nations cooperated to red ire armaments to the minimum required to maintain [tea e. The motion was agreed t_i un nimously.