Waihi Telegraph WITH WHICH IN INCORPORATED THE WAIHI MINER TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1929. ARMAMENTS QUESTION

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXVI, Issue 7903, 17 September 1929, Page 2

Waihi Telegraph WITH WHICH IN INCORPORATED THE WAIHI MINER

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1929. ARMAMENTS QUESTION

W«r«* M.ali liiA Pre«a tft* People p ;<i|3rlit by influence«r»d nnhnb*>d by poJu Hi'ifl Patriot Truth D«r ftloriouM jiroonriM M Palick i, l.tb^rrv

No one has ever doubted that there is trade interest behind armamentmaking. The expenditure of a Government on armaments necessarily creates a trade machinery designed to promote the continuance of such expenditure. To say that is not to say that the major impulses of an armament-building nation are sordid. But while a nation builds in honest desire for self-defence, the trade propagandist spurs on the movement with motives of self-inter-est, and may be likened to the flea on an elephant’s back trying to goad the peaceable animal into furious charges. It says much for President Hoover’s sincerity and determination that he has indicated some of these insects, and has let the world know that not only in “war-hardened Europe” but even in the “peace-lov-ing United States” the commerciallyminded organisers of armament drives are busy. Many an American subject probably has believed that the United States is lily-white on the armaments question; that U.S.A. is a lone crusader who was defeated at Geneva by the European agents of the makers of war-weapons. Perhaps a little more light on what can happen in detached, aloof, highminded America may promote a more balanced view of the real state of opinion across the Atlantic. Part of this American propaganda, says Mr Hoover with great bluntness, “has been directed to create international distrust and hatred.” Americans may balance the humiliation with a sense of pride in the fact that nowhere have the armament-mongers received such scathing notice from the head of the State.