LOCARNO TREAT!

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22125, 1 December 1933, Page 10

LOCARNO TREAT!

RIGHT TO REPUDIATE LORD BEAVERBROOK’S VIEWS. (From Ode Own Correspondent.) LONDON, October 19. Lord Beaverbrook, speaking at tha Guildhouse on Sunday, maintained that Great Britain bad the right to repudiate the Locarno Treaty. Did this country want to take part if war broke out? he asked. The Government, speaking through Mr Baldwin, had intimated that the Treaty of Locarno was regarded as of the same importance as the treaty guaranteeing Belgium for which we went to war in 1914. “The right to repudiate the Treaty of Locarno is clear and decisive,” Lord Beaverbrook said. “ Locarno was entered into for the purposes of enabling the armed nations of Europe to scrap their war materials. Instead of disarmament the French resources for making war have increased. “ Far from performing the conditions of the Treaty of Locarno, the French have rejected the provisions of that document consistently. The treaty has never been observed. We have a right to say and a duty to say, that it is a dead letter. ■■ “We roust cleave to our own Empire. ' We must build up the strength and power of Britain so that she can maintain Her people in peace and llecurity. “ Our army must be strong enough to guard our shores. Our Air Force must be powerful enough to remove the possibility of air attack on our great centres of population. Our naval resources must be ample to protect our trade routes. " Britain strong and free, in union with the dominions, relying on her own might for her defence, and on tightening the bonds of fiscal unity with the Empire for her prosperity—that is the vision which we oppos’e to the perilous international! - ism of Locarno.”