The Star. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1914. THE EVILS OF ARMAMENTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10969, 7 January 1914, Page 4

The Star. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1914. THE EVILS OF ARMAMENTS.

Some of the New Zealand Tory journals are extremely pleased because they seem to detect, tho possibility of British Cabiuet conflict on tho armament question. They are, of course, extremely liarih in their references to Mr Lloyd George. By any proper test, savs one of them, there is little of true Liberalism in Mr Lloyd George: his policy is directly in conflict, on most important pqints, with the principles of Liberalism as understood and laid down by Mr Gladstone and by the authentic Liberals before him Lot us hear what tho Chancellor of the Exchequer has to say in his own behalf. It may seem happen that somo of our readers will have the extremely bad taste to agree with him. Speaking iu England recently, Mr George said;—

No one could be iu the Exchequer for five. years without realising what a terrible eyil the cost of armaments is. Since I have been at the Exchequer it has been my misfortune to have to provide a year more nicnev for armaments than my predecessor had" to find the year he left office Tweuiv million.* a year: do you know what that meass in rates? Supposing you could imbue the nations cf the world with a little sanity, with a'little common seuso. and. they suddenly thought what all this foolish, wild, mad competition meant, and they said: Let us stop it: let us go bick to what we were five Years ago. If I got that £K),COO,000without putting an additional penny upon anything, I could next year take eighteen pence in the pound off the rates of everybody in the United Kingdom. " Do let mo sav this." Mr Lloyd George continued, speaking with great earnestness, "•It would be better for and Groat Britain, and France, and Russia, if they agreed to drop it in ihe German Ocean than that they should spend it on this hideous machinery and mechanism of human slaughter. Ido not srirk the consideration of armaments, but I do say it is about time ihe whole of these countries should take counsel together. We really do not want to kill each other. I have never met a German yet who is anxious to slay any Britisher whom he knew, and 1 have never met a decent Britisher who is really anxious to slay the first German he met in the street," What they do is to conjure up soma sort of monster in their n-.inds, arid eay, 'That is Germany, let us spend £70,000,000 to blow it up,' and ,the Germans do the same thing with us. That is lunacy. We should bring down the rates and taxes, buikl houses, sweep away slumr, make a really new land of Britain, if wo could only get these countries frankly by the hand and sav: No more murder. And if we could get rid of some newspapers!"

Perhaps it is just possible "that there is something in what Mr Lloyd George says, and that all the wisdom of the world is not- gathered in the sanctum of a Christehurch newspaper. It is rather an alarming thing, is it not, that it should be costing Great Britain now £20,000,000 a year more for armaments than when tho present Chancellor of the Exchequer took office, and it is more alarming still to imagine what, at the present rate of progress, the cost will be in the future. If Mr Lloyd George's policy is in conflict with " the principles of Liberalism as laid down by Mr Gladstone," may it not well bo that the time is rotten ripe for a change?