POWER BEHIND DIPLOMACY

Southland Times, Issue 22948, 22 July 1936, Page 5

POWER BEHIND DIPLOMACY

New British Policy

OUTLINE OF DEFENCE MEASURES RAPID PROGRESS WITH AIR FORCE (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) London, July 20. Speaking on the co-ordination of defence in the House of Commons and referring to Mr David Lloyd George’s declaration that it was easier for a strong country to gain its objects by peaceful diplomacy that a weak one, the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence (Sir Thomas Inskip), said that the remark referred to Germany, but was equally true of Britain or of any country. He hoped that Labour members would remember that observation when they were confusing questions of defence with British foreign policy. Sir Thomas added that the Chiefs of Staff had been studying afresh control, production and merchant shipping, and concerting plans for aerial and naval co-operation, on which Britian’s security depended. The Naval Programme. The Minister said that in ship production, equipment and personnel the reports of the naval programme were satisfactory, and while maintenance and replacements were proceeding normally, additions and expansions on a growing scale were constantly taking place. He was not aware of any anxiety in any quarter about the naval position. When the new source of munitions which the Government hoped to secure among private firms was available and the Government factories were in production, seven-eighths of the total requirements in shell, fuse, and cartridge cases would have been provided. A great advance had been made since he spoke eight weeks ago in the provision of the necessary gauges of all types and descriptions. Sir Thomas announced the dispersal of the Royal Ordnance Factory at Woolwich to various points in South Wales, Lancashire and Scotland. The Minister said that the Air Force was a new and unknown factor in any future war, and its development in machines and equipment during, the last three or four years was simply amazing. The best ilustration was that machines were under production today for regular use in the Air Force which five years ago would have been serious competitors for the Schneider Cup. Output More Than Trebled. The Minister said that comparing April, May and June with the corresponding period of last year the delivery of aircraft was about three and a-half times as many aeroplanes and over twice as many engines. Sir Thomas spoke of the work being done on the pre blem of food supplies in war-time, and said that the Government was on the point of reaching conclusions which he hoped would ensure to the country an increased output by agriculture as well as a sufficiency of supply from abroad of all essential food and feeding stuffs for which the country was dependent on imports. Mr H. B Lees-Smith for the Labour Opposition, and the Liberal spokesman (Sir Archibald Sinclair) complained that Sir Thomas Inskip’s speech showed a lack of co-ordination between the rearmament programme and the foreign policy and betw’een the assumed requirements of Britain and the collective system generally. Mr Lees-Smith complained that the Minister dealt almost exclusively with questions of supply and did not refer to the co-ordination of the defence services, on which he was unable to concentrate while engrossed with problems of supply. Sir Thomas Inskip did cot possess his own staff, and the result would be that millions of pounds would be largely wasted owing to lack of co-ordination. “An Innocent Victim.” Mr Winston Churchill said that he thought that he could assure Sir Archibald Sinclair that in any war in which Britain would ever be engaged she would be acting entirely in conformity with the spirit of the Covenant of the League of Nations. He went on to criticize the administrative system adopted by the Government for the co-ordination of defence, describing Sir Thomas Inskip as the innocent victim of responsibility so strangely, so inharmoniously, so perversely grouped, and endowed with powers so restricted that no one could regard the experiment as satisfactory. He urged the separation of the function of co-ordin-ating high strategic thought from those problems connected with material supplies. A Labour motion to reduce the Supplementary Defence vote, including Sir Thomas Inskip’s salary, was defeated by 320 votes to 155.