The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1914. THE RACE FOR ARMAMENT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 17, 20 January 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1914. THE RACE FOR ARMAMENT.

What may he considered one of the most significant utterances on armaments is the speech made in December by the Bavarian Premier, who, while

admitting that at the beginning of 1913 the situation called for' extraordinary increases in Germany’s armaiments, said that there must now, however, be a pause for many years to come, as the German people would not be able to bear any further burdens. It is natural enough that it should bo from Bavaria that this warning of the effects of expenditure upon armaments emanates. Bavaria is not a rich country, but its case is only an illustration on a smaller scale of what must happen in the long run to all the competitors in the terrible race for place amongst the great armed nations of Europe, and sooner or later all classes will be forced to the conclusion that there are no more Dreadnoughts to be had. At present, as a Berlin correspondent points out in “The Economist,” Germany’s expenditure on land and sea defence alone amounts to no less than half her total expenditure. Her debt has risen nearly £5,000,000 in a single year, and there is quite a possibility that by the end of next year it may touch £200,000,000. “There must he a pause,” us

the Bavarian Premier says, in finance of that kind. And there is independent evidence enough that it is coming. Prince Bulow, in his book just published, records with satisfaction that German policy now determines German armaments, and not the reverse as was once the case. There is the best of reasons in the figures quoted why German policy should not be anxious in the near future to extend unnecessarily its armaments hill, and there is no reason whatever why it should be British policy to provide Germany ■with excuses for resisting an economy which must come eventually when the nation can no longer bear the burden.