The High Price Of Peace

Northern Advocate, 18 July 1938, Page 6

The High Price Of Peace

THE enormous burden imposed on the British taxpayer by the Government's defence measures is shown by the fact that the Finanve Bill passed into law on Friday rovides for a budget of £1,000,000,000, of which stupendous sum a very large portion represents expenditure on armaments. Sir John Simon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his final comment on the Budget, aptly summarised the tragedy of the armaments race, into which Britain lias been drawn as a matter of national' self-preservation, with his remark that his overwhelming, feeling was one of ‘‘repulsion 'and resentment that humanity was mortgaging so immense a pait of its resources in preparation for a possible Armageddon, when so much might be done with those resources if only a solution of the difficulties could be found.” > Coincident with the passage of the Finance Bill, the British Government placed with Lord Nuffield’s new aircraft factory, a £10.000,000 order for new high speed air fighters. At the present time, those machines represent the last word in design, but in u few years they will be obsolete. They may never be used for the purposes of war, yet it is necessary to have them as a bulwark, just as it is necessary to have efficient armies and a mighty fleet, costing incredible sums yearly, to maintain a state of efficiency. It is sad to think of the useful purposes to which such exenditurc could be put if this were a saner world. Slums could be abolished, great parks formed, every child could be sent to the modern school. Humanity could be made happier and healthier. Instead of that, the nations eye each other suspiciously across their frontiers, land spend incalculable treasure on the machinery of slaughter. It is a high price to pay for peace. But the price would ho higher still for war.