“WAR NOT INEVITABLE"

Taranaki Daily News, 10 February 1934, Page 7

“WAR NOT INEVITABLE"

OPINIONS OF MR. BALDWIN BOUNDARIES ONLY GAUSE PROPER WORK FOR LEAGUE DISARMAMENT DIFFICULTIES British Wireless. Rugby, Feb. 8. During the House of Commons discussion on Imperial affairs, Mr. Stanley Baldwin described the debate as a complementary disarmament debate. He said that there were immense difficulties in securing a disarmament agreement and warned members against lighthearted talk on economy blockages or budgetary limitations on armaments. Mr. Baldwin did not agree that war was inevitable. The only surviving cause of war was that boundaries were unsatisfactory now or in future, and changes therein were work proper to the League of Nations. If the disarmament efforts succeeded there would be agreed limits up to which all countries could arm, and it would be their duty to make themselves as competent as possible up to that limit, which was what every nation must do if it was to make itself fit to be a partner and colleague of other nations. “We are making a last attempt to obtain the ordered limitation of armaments and trying to avoid the dreadful alternative,” he said. “If we fail the Government will regard it as a duty to look after the interests of Britain first and quickly.”