THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1935. ARMAMENTS AND PEACE.

Wairarapa Age, 7 March 1935, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1935. ARMAMENTS AND PEACE.

Many not prepared to go as far as Lord Snowden, who has said that Britain ’s subservience to France has led us into one war and seems likely to lead us into another, will find extremely depressing reading in the particulars which have been made public of the new British Defence Estimates and the official explanations by which they are accompanied. The policy of increased expenditure now to be put into l operation is declared to be elastic, and * ‘ capable of adjustment in accordance with circumstances.’' In other words, Britain presumably hopes to use the threat of continued increases in expenditure on. military, naval and air defences as 1 a bargaining factor in her efforts to induce other nation? to agree upon some mutual limitation of armaments. It need not be doubted that Britain remains honestly intent upon promoting disarmament and peace, but the fact stands that she is now becoming an active competitor in a race of armaments. Little enough hope or confidence for the future can be based on the statement in the British White Paper:— Unfortunately it can no longer be assumed that existing international political machinery would be sufficient in all cases to maintain peace, and although the Government intends to pursue without intermission the national policy of peace, it can no longer close its eyes to the fact that adequate defences are still required for security and to enable the British Empire to play its full part in maintaining world peace.

It is an established fact that Britain has taken risks in allowing <the strength of her own armaments to decline and that other leading nations have declined to co-operate in this policy. There is no visible hope, however, of improving on the existing international situation, or of averting ultimate war, in any other way than by carrying efforts for disarmament to success. Of late it has seemed that the air pact negotiations in Europe might open up a new and promising avenue of approach to this goal, but the publication of the British Defence Estifnates and the statements by which they are accompanied can hardly be regarded as likely to assist the success of the mission in which Sir John Bimon and Mr. Anthony Eden propose to Visit Berlin and other European capitals.

For this country and other Dominions, the situation now developing has its peculiar and extremely serious interest. One passage in the White Paper states that: “The first line of defence continues to be the Navy, which alone can maintain the sea communications essential to the existence of this country (Britain) and the Empire.” Another passage in the document reads:—

In the case of the Navy and Army, the programme mainly involved is the essential supply of modern equipment, adequate personnel, and reserves. In the case of the Royal Air Force alone was an appreciable increase of units thought immediately necessary.

It may very reasonably be doubted Whether the most efficient Navy will fcver again be able to maintain the sea communications of the Empire over world distances in conditions of modern war. There is much to suggest that the decisive fighting factor in any future war on a great scale will be air force and that any nation or combination of nations gaining the upper hand in the air would be generally supreme. Allowance perhaps should be made for the possibility that the actual employment of the air arm in its modern development, in the bombing of great cities and in other ways, may break up and destroy the organisation of nations. In any case the conception of the Navy protecting and keeping open sea routes round the world as it did tin the years of the Great War is no longer convincing. Conditions and possibilities have in the interval changed vitally. The situation developing in Europe no doubt means that New Zealand and other Dominions must give serious thought to their own security No useful purpose will be served, howfever, by concentrating on ideas regarding Imperial defence that belong to another era and are now definitely obsolete.