THE NAVY.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19139, 24 October 1927, Page 9

THE NAVY.

"NOT OUT OF DATE." MR BRIDGEMAN'S VIEWS. (bt cabi.s—perßs association—copyright.) (acstbaluh akd ».z. asd sum cable.) ! (Received October 23rd, 5.5 p.m.) ; LONDON, October 22. The Hon. Mr Bridgeman, in a speech at the Navy League's Nelson dinner at the Hotel Cecil, said: "Without the Dominions' support mv task at Geneva would have been very difficult, if not impossible." Earl Beatty said: "I think that sometimes the Dominions better understand the Navy's vital importance. We are liable to sink into the comfortable fallacy that the Navy is out of date." REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS. (BRITISH ornciAL WIBELZSS.) RUGBY, October 21. Viscount Cecil, addressing the League of Nations Union to-day, said thac ono of the objects of his recent resignation from the Cabinet was to enable him, with greater freedom, to press upon his fellow-countrymen the urgency of the problem of disarmament. Every support should be given to efforts being made by the Preparatory Commission of the League of Nations. "We must realise that if we are to obtain any genuine reductions of armaments, it must be because we can convince the nations that such reduction would not imperil their existonce. We have got to increase security and diminish suspicion." Sir Austen Chamberlain had done much, especially at the meetings of the League Council and the Assembly, to increase prestige of the League. Viscount Cecil begged him and the Government not to be weary in welldoing, and above all not to allow bureaucrats to undermine the League by substituting agencies based on the j old diplomacy.