CHANCELLOR ON ARMAMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23205, 1 June 1937, Page 18

CHANCELLOR ON ARMAMENTS

" Britain’s bill for defence this year is £140,000,000 more than it was two years ago.” said the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Neville Chamberlain), speaking at the bankers’ dinner in London. “Although the burden is not excessive, I cannot help casting one long, lingering look behind at these vast sums which would have been available for the redemption of taxation had not circumstances over which we had no control directed otherwise. Well, it is of no use kicking against the pricks, and for the present, at any rate, we must continue to follow the path upon which we have entered. I do not even now despair of a return to a saner state of things. There are other countries besides our own where the weight of armaments is pressing down the back of the people and where the resources which are at their disposal are by no means so abundant and so buoyant as they are here. If only we could find some way of removing that fear of attack from somewhere else which is almost universal, but which may yet rest on nothing more solid than imagination, the nations of the world might joyfully return to the ways of peace and building up of their own comfort and happiness and prosperity, instead of devoting themselves to the means of destroying one another. The British Government will do all it can to see that the day comes earlier rather than later.”