BRITISH DEFENCES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22519, 13 March 1935, Page 6

BRITISH DEFENCES

The suggestion put forward oil behalf of the Labour Party, in the House of Commons, that the Government's proposal to increase the expenditure on the war services is inconsistent with British membership of the League of Nations and even involves a repudiation of the Covenant of the League will not bear examination. It is irrefutable that, as Mr Baldwin claimed, British statesmen of all classes have steadily given support to the League "under conditions and in times of extraordinary difficulty and against opposition from countries that have now left it." It is impossible, however, with due regard for national security, to ignore the fact that other Powers, despite their membership, past or present, of the League, have not felt called upon to refrain from substantially increasing their armaments. While these countries have been strengthening their forces—land, naval and air—Great Britain has, in honest adherence to the view that gradual disarmament is desirable and in earnest of the conviction that, through the adoption of that course, an effective contribution might be made to the attainment of the ideal of world peace, deliberately reduced her expenditure on her defence services. The sincerity of the'efforts of the Government over a series of years to bring about an international policy of disarmament is not discounted by the assertion that it has spent a vast amount of money on armaments in the course of this period. If the nation was not to scrap all its existing armaments and to disband its forces, it had necessarily to spend large sums of money on their maintenance. The test is applied by a consideration of the present condition of its armaments with that of the armaments of other countries. This shows conclusively that Great Britain now occupies a position in which her security is dangerously threatened—a position in which, if war were suddenly to break out, she would be definitely inferior in respect of armaments to countries that might be regarded as potential enemies. It is because of this that the proposals that are now being reluctantly made to increase the nation's armaments have come not a day too soon. It would be different if the plans for the adoption of collective systems of defence were complete, although even then it might be held that the British forces were not sufficient to enable the nation to pull its full weight in any struggle. But the collective system is not complete, and the withdrawal of Germany and

Japan from the League of Nations has, as Mr Baldwin observes, dealt a heavy blow to the system.- The efforts of the British Government are still being directed to the negotiation of agreements under which a complete collective system would be established and then, as The Times says, the logical and natural consequence would be a reduction all round of the individual national forces. Pending the creation of such a system, the Government's proposals are to be viewed as of a precautionary character designed to insure the country in some measure against the risk of a possible disaster. I