THE Wairarapa Age MONDAY, JULY 6, 1936. ARMAMENTS AND SECURITY.

Wairarapa Age, 6 July 1936, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MONDAY, JULY 6, 1936. ARMAMENTS AND SECURITY.

Leading facts of the present situation and outlook in Europe were dealt with very frankly by Mr. Baldwin in a speech at the centenary dinner of the City of London Conservatives which is reported to-day. While he defended as an inescapable necessity the increased expenditure Britain is making on armaments, the British Prime Minister also recognised very freely and openly the limitations of that policy. Until trade onee more began to circulate and goods could be exchanged and paid for by nations (he said) there was no permanence in security. Though they all knew they must go on quickly with rearmament, they recognised that the expenditure Britain was making on armaments was at the expense of her international trade. They had to emphasise the folly of such procedure in their conversations with foreign

countries, for if protracted too long it might ruin her. This is as open and complete an admission as could be expected from any statesman that the utmost that can be claimed for a policy of building up armaments is that it is making the best of a very bad job. Mr. Baldwin not only admitted that armaments give no permanence of security, but showed —though he might easily have gone much further in that direction—that the expansion of armaments progressively destroys the basis of security. One note of hopeful import sounded by the British Prime Minister was in his statement that the strongest desire of his Government was 44 to bring together France and Germany, without whose collaboration no peace in Europe is possible.” So far at least as Europe is concerned, an understanding between France and Germany—an understanding based on genuine reconciliation and a readiness to deal fairly by one another —is the key to the establishment of security and to making an end of the ignominious failures that have so desperately weakened the League of Nations. There are features of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany and of that country’s internal and external policy which seem at times to preclude the possibility of peaceful understanding. Beneath the upper crust of political rule in Germany, however, as in every nation worthy of the name, there is a genuine desire for peace, and the endeavour of British statesmanship at all times, in dealing with Germany or with any other nation, must be to enable that desire to find expression.

In his speech to City of London Conservatives, Mr. Baldwin said there had come a point in the treatment of the Italo-Abyssinian dispute when further pressure might well have meant war and that Britain must prepare herself to fulfil her obligations under the Covenant in any circumstances. Obviously, however, the danger of war arising out of the enforcement of the Covenant will be lessened in the extent to which the League of Nations is strengthened— in the extent, that is to say, to which it becomes more nearly in fact what it is now in name. Nothing would do more to remedy the present insecurity in Europe than a full understanding and agreement between France and Germany which would enable them both to become loyal and whole-hearted members of the League. A full understanding between France and Germany would open the way to the mutual reduction of armaments which the League was formed to promote and would have its beneficial reactions also on other world problems, including those of the Pacific. Obviously full understanding between France and Germany will not be reached easily or quickly, but British statesmanship cannot be employed better in the realm of international

affairs than in endeavouring to pro mote the agreement between two na tions on which so much besides is like ly to depend.