" STUPID CRIME "
H. G. WELLS’S INDICTMENT.
WASTE AT SINGAPORE.
LONDON, October 10. Mr H. G. AVollSj the novelist, in an article in the “Westminster Gazette” says: —“It is proposed that Britain, who is too shaboy and poor to give tho mass of her own children more than half an elementary education, who cannot house her poor with comfort and decency, and who ha 6 over a million unemployed, shall spend a great sum on the establishment of a naval base at Singapore, and provide battleships and cruisers to play a part in the ‘next war.’
“It is an admirably chosen position on the supposition that the world will still go on divided among aggressive sovereign States. It is quite a good move in that game. But on the supposition that the world is growing up and coming to an age of reason, and that a world-civilisation is attainable, it is a monstrously stupid crime.” Replying to a deputation calling attention to the distress in Barrow-in-EHimess, Sir W. Joynson-Hicks, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said that undoubtedly the Washington disarmament agreement killed Barrow, which the Admiralty in peace time supported as an exclusively armament town. It must decay unless Vickers could convert its factory to undertake commercial work, such as the manufacture of steel girders.
He hoped that the Government would be able to assist in providing work in the iron and steel trades.
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11661, 27 October 1923, Page 7
Word Count
233" STUPID CRIME " New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11661, 27 October 1923, Page 7
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