The Disarmament Farce

Maoriland Worker, Volume 13, Issue 31, 1 August 1923, Page 4

The Disarmament Farce

When the Washington disarmament pact Was published, The Maoriland Worker expressed the opinion that by limiting expenditure oh costly dreadnoughts Which were obsolete and user less, it enabled the Powers to spend more lavishly on the really up-to-date methods of warfare, and that for this reason the pact was pure humbug. In the light of events will anyone say that this view is wrong? One of our contributors, in a recent issue-, reviewed the armaments activities of the signatories to the pact in poison gases, aerial construction, submarine development, and germ bombs, and no one could possibly read this article without arriving at the conclusion that the professions of the Powers as they were compiling the pact were the dizzy limit in hypocrisy. At least two of the signatories—France and Britain—are now openly engaged in an aerial armaments race against each other, and on Friday morning the cables informed us that another of them—the United States —" in the event of hostilities," will have 2,500 machines and was askiug Congres? for ah appropriation providing " TWICE- 'TH_ AMOUNT WHiCrf WAS AVAILABLE FOR THE ARMY /AIR SERVICE in 1923." Like the armaments competition before 1914, it is all being done for the. "maintenance of peace," but it is a safe prediction that the outcome Will be different. The rulers, m short, are preparing to kill the peoples.