BRITISH ARMAMENTS.

Wairarapa Age, 22 July 1936, Page 5

BRITISH ARMAMENTS.

Sir Thomas announced the dispersal of the Royal ordinance factory at Woolwich to various points in South Wales, Lancashire, and Scotland. Turning to the Air Force, the Minister said it was a new and unknown factor in future war. Its development in machines and equipment during the last three or four years was simply amazing. The best illustration was that machines were under production to-day for regular use in the Air Force which five years ago would have been serious competitors for the Schneider Cup. •

Coming to the question of expansion of aircraft production, he said that, comparing April, May, and June with the corresponding period last year, delivery was about thrOe and a half times as many aeroplanes and more than twice as many engines. Before he concluded Sir Thomas Inskip spoke of work that is being done on the problem of food supplies in war time, and said that they were on the point of reaching conclusions which he hoped would ensure to the country increased output by agriculture as well as a sufficiency of supplies from abroad of all essential food and feeding stuffs for which the country was dependent on imports. OPPOSITION CRITICISM. Mr. H. B. Lees Smith (Labour), for the Opposition, and the Liberal spokesman, Sir Archibald Sinclair, complained that Sir Thomas Inskip’s speech showed lack of co-ordination between the rearmament programme and foreign policy and between the assumed requirements of Great Britain and the collective system generally.

Mr. Winston Churchill (Conservative) said he thought he could assure Sir Archibald Sinclair that in any war in which Britain would ever be engaged she would be acting entirely in conformity with the spirit of the Covenant of the League of Nations. He went on to criticise the administrative system adopted by the Government for co-ordination of defence, describing Sir Thomas Inskip as an innocent victim of responsibility so strangely, so inharmoniously, and so perversely grouped, and endowed with powers so restricted, that no one could regard the experiment as satisfactory. He urged the separation of the function of coordinating and high strategic thought from those problems connected with material supplies.— (British Official Wireless).

GERMANY’S HUGE OUTLAY. QUESTION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. RUGBY, July 20. Mr. Winston Churchill. (Conservative) asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons if he was aware that expenditure by Germany on purposes directly and indirectly concerned with military preparations, including strategic roads, might have amounted to £800,000.000 •during 1935, and whether this rate of expenditure seemed to be continuing. Mr. Neville Chamberlain replied that the Government had no official figures, but from the information it had he saw no reason to think that the figure mentioned bv Mr.. Churchill was necessarily excessive as applied to either year, although there were elements of conjecture.— (British Official Wireless).

Expansion On Growing Scale. SURVEY BY CO-ORDINATION MINISTER. REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT OF AIRCRAFT. FOOD SUPPLY IN WAR TIME. RUGBY, July 20. The Minister for Co-ordination of Defence (Sir Thomas Inskip), •initiating the debate on the Government's defence programme in the House of Commons to-night, gave a review of his Department's efforts to accelerate the programme of rearmament. Referring to the naval programme, he said that in ship production, equipment, and personnel the sports were satisfactory, and while maintenance and replacements had been proceeding in a normal manner, additions and expansion on a growing scale were constantly taking place. He was not aware of any anxiety in any quarter as to the naval position. Regarding the supply of -munitions, when new sources which they hoped to secure among private firms were available and the Government factories were in production seven-eighths of the total requirements in shell, fuse, and cartridge cases would have been provided. A great advance had been made since he spoke eight weeks ago in the provision of necessary gauges of all types and descriptions.