Need for British Armaments

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 69, 23 March 1937, Page 5

Need for British Armaments

SPEECH BY HOME SECRETARY (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 20. The Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, .speaking at Plymouth, said that the most remarkable thing about the debates in the House of Commons on tho defence programme had been that, apart from the six extreme Left Wing members, no one on either side of the House had denied that substantial additional expenditure on armaments was necessary. The fact that at the present moment, out of the seven most powerful States in the world, the U.S.A., Japan and Germany were outside the League of Nations altogether, while Italy was acutely critical of the League, must have a profound effect upon the League ideal of collective security, viewed not as an ideal, but as a going concern. “There are some people who are tempted to refuse to face these facts, and they repeat the phrase ‘collective security’ almost as though it were a charm or an incantation,” he said. “But the safety of our country cannot depend on a phrase, and in the world as we find it our defence policy is a uecessary means by which we can discharge our responsibilities and fulfil our international obligations.” Referring to the Government’s policy of non-intervention in Spain, he said, “We Rave two motives. In the first place the present struggle in Spain ought to be an issue for the Spanish people. We do not believe that a decision imposed as a result of foreign aid to one side or the other is likely to be lasting. But we have another and even more urgent motive. No one can fail to see that unchecked intervention on both sides would almost certainly have led in the end to extending tho war, and above all let us give no encouragement to open competition in intervention among most of the Powers of Europe, which must sooner or later almost inevitably bring about the incalculable disaster of widespread war.” Sir Archibald Sinclair, leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, speaking at Glasgow University, said that in the circumstances of the world to-day, rearmament was evil and dangerous, but au inescapable necessity. But it was vital that re-armament should not be merely for selfish national purposes but in order to help to create a system of collective security which would buttress the law in Europe and deter dictatorships from the crime of aggression.