BRITISH LEADERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23883, 10 August 1939, Page 12

BRITISH LEADERS

SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS ARMAMENTS INDUSTRY CLOSE CONNECTIONS LABOUR MEMBER'S ATTACK <From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Aug. 9. "We on this side of the House have no friendly feeling to those who are guiding the destinies of the British Empire at present," said Mr C- Morgan Williams (Govt., Kaiapoi) during the Financial debate in the House of Representatives today. The Chamberlain group which was in control, he said, had always been notoriously closely connected with the armaments industry and, naturally, if war preparations could be speeded up throughout the world that group would gain. The Chamberlain group had been described by the Leader of the 'Opposition (Mr Adam Hamilton) as " our betters," Mr Williams said. I Every decent man would resent that. The reason that the New Zealand Government had to Budget for such an enormous expenditure on armaments was because the Chamberlain group had deliberately betrayed the League of Nations over Manchuria, Abyssinia, Austria and Czechoslovakia and had thus destroyed a system which would have made armaments unnecessary.

The policy of appeasement, Mr Williams said, was like the policy of Ethelred the Unready, who paid the Danes to leave England and eventually bled the country white to pay the increasing demands of the Danes. "Appeasement is not a good policy when it involves throwing British children to the wolf which is threatening Britain," he «aid.

The Munich agreement Mr Williams described as "a stage-man-aged bluff." Herr Hitler had assurances months before that Britain would not stand in the way of Germany's expansion in Central Europe. It was probable that Mr Chamberlain did not believe that Herr Hitler would go as far, as he did and that in this he was "double-crossed." After Germany had become much stronger through the taking of the military supplies and important arms industry, Mr Chamberlain had turned round and was now making a show of resisting Germany. How sincere this show was, it was impossible to say. "We in New Zealand are faced with a tremendous armaments burden, partly because those at the head of affairs in Britain are so closely connected with the armaments industry," Mr Williams said. "Those ueople who the Leader of the Opposition says are our superiors, are quite capable of betraying national interests for the sake bf their own interests. Britain now fears Germany and hates Russia, but the fear of Germany is in the ascendancy."

GOVERNMENT'S ATTITUDE SUPPORT FOR BRITISH DEFENCE EFFORTS COMMENT BY MR COATES <From Oun Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Aug. 9. "How can we expect to have cohesion in the Empire when members of the Government say that they have no sympathy with the British Government? " asked Mr J. G. Coates (Opposition. Kaipara) when commenting in the House of Representatives to-day on the speech given just previously in the Budget debate by Mr Williams. Mr Williams: I said I had no sympathy with the British Government's policy. The Acting Prime Minister (Mr P. Fraser): The Government is wholeheartedly in favour of the defence Dolicy that is being pursued by the British Government. Mr Coates: Then New Zealand is 100 per cent, behind it? Mr Fraser: Yes, behind its defence efforts." "Well, in that case," Mr Coates said, "it is the duty of some Minister to get up and make the situation absolutely clear."