DUTY TO EMPIRE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22540, 3 October 1936, Page 13

DUTY TO EMPIRE

FORCED TO REARM •• BRITAIN'S POSITION FIRST LORD'S SPEECH I DANGERS OF BEING WEAK By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright British Wireless TtUOBY, Oct. 1 The annual conference of the Con- 1 servative Party opened to-day at 1 Margate, about 1300 delegates at- 1 tending. The First Lord of the 1 Admiralty, Sir Samuel Hoare, acted as spokesman for the Government on questions of policy. He made his opening speech on the defence ; question. Sir Samuel laid stress on the gravity of the international situation and the urgent and persistent need for British rearmament. Six months ago, said the First Lord, tho National Government drew a picture of the vast armaments that had been accumulated by all the great countries in the world. Since then the position had become substantially worse. Small countries had been forced to embark upon large schemes of rearmament. Referring to the position of Germany, Sir Samuel recalled that she had introduced conscription in March, 1935, and announced a peace-time army establishment of '56 divisions with a strength of 550,000 men, and an Air Force of outstanding magnitude. Rearmament By Other Nations Germany was spending at a rate that was given as £800,000,000 annually on military preparations. This was a formidable enough situation, but since March Germany had extended the term of military service to two years. France, where a two years' service was introduced last year, and where tlie Air Force was already in process of reorganisation under a Government of the Left, had decided on further expansion in military, naval and air material at a cost of £186,000,000. In Russia the recruiting age since March had been reduced, with the result that there was an increase in the vast numbers of effectives and a great expansion in the Air Force. Lessons Taught by the Figures j In Japan the proportion of the public Budget devoted to the Army and Navy had reached the_ striking figure of 46 per cent. Even in the United States expenditure upon armaments was steadily rising. No wise, patriotic citizen could ignore those figures. No wise or patriotic citizen could shut his eyes to the lessons they had to teach. The first was the futility of onesided disarmament, and the second the need of a greatly strengthened British Empire as a stabilising force on the side of peace. Sir Samuel said that he launched no attacks upon any country in the world, but the facts and figures stood j out beyond contradiction. Intention to Safeguard the Empire The supposed weakness of the British Empire had been proved by bitter experience to be a disturbing factor in the field of international politics. "Faced with this situation we have no alternative but to carry through with the least possible delay our programme of rearmament," stated Sir Samuel. "Much of this programme is absolute and not relative. It is intended fo safeguard the British Commonwealth of Nations. "The building up of the Fleet and the expansion of tho Air Force are 'absolutely essential, and the re-equip-ment and strengthening of the Army is no less necessary for the duties it has to perform. "We can on no account agree to any disarmament proposals which would stereotype our relative weakness. Our programme is and must be llexible and not rigid; dynamic and not static." No Transfer of Territories The Minister recalled the statements made by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary regarding mandates, and went on to say that the Government was as fully aware as anyone of the difficulties and objections to the transfer of mandates. They stood by Mr. Eden's statement that tho transfer of any mandated territory would inevitably raise grave difficulties. The Government hoped that with so many international problems still unsolved there would in no quarters be any desire to introduce further causes of serious difficulties between nations.