GERMAN REARMAMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22403, 27 April 1936, Page 11

GERMAN REARMAMENT

MR. CHURCHILL'S WARNING BRITISH DEFENCE INADEQUATE British Wireless RUGBY, April 23 Mr. Winston Churchill intervened in the resumed debate on the Budget in the House of Commons to-day. He warmly commended the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, on his stewardship of the national finances since 1932. However, Mr. Churchill expressed misgivings as to the adequacy of the Chancellor's provision for rearmament. He recalled his own repeated statements about the rate of the military preparations in Germany, which, he said, were based on information from sources which he could not divulge. However, he had checked it from a great many other quarters, and he maintained his belief in the approximate accuracy of the figures. It was acknowledged that the expenditure of the German Government between March, 1933, and June, 1935, above the previous level of Budget expenditure, totalled £1,000,000,000, but other factors suggested that that figure was far beloAv the actual facts.

Therefore, Mr. Churchill said, he was justified in making the startling statement that £800,000,000 was spent by Germany in 1935 alone on warlike preparations—a most prodigious, disturbing and alarming figure, which he challenged the Chancellor to contradict.

It had been said that more could not be spent by Britain on rearmament under peace conditions, said Mr. Churchill, lest the economic and social life of the country be disturbed. Peace conditions were convenient if they gave the necessary deliveries of munitions. If not, they must substitute, not necessarily war conditions, but conditions which might impinge upon the ordinary daily life of the country, A Ministry of Supply or Munitions should have been established.

Mr. Churchill closed his speech jvith nn eloquent peroration, in which he described Europe as approaching a climax, which he believed would be reached in the lifetime of the present Parliament. The nations must either join hands, or there would bo an explosion and a catastrophe. He thought a well-armed Britain, valiantly led, seeking peace, but ready to run risks for it, might conceivably turn the scale between blessing and cursing mankind. Mr. Churchill flung his notes on the table and resumed his seat amid a burst of cheering. Mr. Chamberlain, in winding up the debate and answering Mr, Churchill, said: "The Government is doing the most that is possible under peace time conditions. If it has not taken the powers Mr. Churchill suggested, it is because the Government does not think the present situation justifies the risks involved."