PERILS OF SECRET WAR PREPARATIONS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 87, 7 January 1919, Page 7

PERILS OF SECRET WAR PREPARATIONS

-—: — <h— ■'"."" HOW A LEAGUE OF NATIONSSHOULD MEET THEM." Mr. Winston Churchill, speaking at a ' ■;'■ luncheon given recently by tho Drapers' Organiser to teh editors of the American trade journals, said we owed to President Wilson a great debt of gratitude for explaining so forcibly the broad .conception of democracy, for which we had been fighting throughout the war. "I was very anxious,'' he continued, "before the war, a year before, to arrive at a defini to understanding that everything should be fully disclosed on both sides-60 far as the British and German navies wore concerned., We had nothing to conceal. We had done nothing which at any time we could not publish to the world. 'If a Leaguo of Nations is to descend from the brilliant clouds of idealism to a practical working proposition,- there is no . more useful step than to insist, after 1 , the war is over, that every nation belonging, t oho league shall register and place before an international body details of its military, naval,- and aerial preparations, which can bo tested at any time by re-, presentatiyos, of other countries. I.believe that practical step could do more ' to prevent a renewal of this honror than any other system which could bo 6et on foot. With tho march of science some such provision had become all the_ more indispensable because there were inventions and devices of war of a most hide-' ous character—some in our possession-' which would give to their users an overwhelming advantage if they suddenly choso to break tho p.eaco.