LABOUR AND DEFENCE.

Evening Star, Issue 22449, 21 September 1936, Page 8

LABOUR AND DEFENCE.

It is intimated from London that the National Executive of the British Labour Party by a substantial majority decided to support the Government’s rearmament programme. Labour’s attitude on problems of defence has changed in a marked degree in the last few years. It has yielded to the force of circumstances. The old shibboleths have been discarded, and the rise of dictatorships, with the suppression of individual liberty, has brought the party face to face with realities. Dr Dalton, one of the chiefs in the British political Labour councils, has come out into the open with the declaration that the party should show a united front on the issue of preparation towards arming to defend democratic institutions! There are still prominent members of the party who refuse to give their support to what the Government is doing in making good the deficiencies in Britain’s defences caused through giving the nations a practical but unavailing lead in efforts to achieve world peace. The dissentient minority in the Labour camp mav be divided into two sections. One makes the stand that rearmament is merely provocative of war. It is composed of idealists who would risk everything for its beliefs. The other takes the attitude that the Opposition’s duty is to oppose, and is unsparing in its criticisms of the Government’s ■ methods. It condemns details rather than the broad policy of rearmament itself.

Major Attlee, who leads the Labour Party in the House of Commons, lias declined to commit himself to the executive’s decision to support the

Government’s rearmament plans. While tlio world has lost faith in conferences, he still believes in them. In a statement last month he said he would like to see a conference held at which every representative of every nation would have present before him a demonstration of what war really means. He added: “There is time yet to save the world if only ordinary men and women will rouse themselves to action.” It seems incomprehensible that a man of Major Attlee’s knowledge and experience should utter such futile remarks, for they completely evade the real point, which is that there can be no security in the world while certain nations arm to the teeth, show a spirit of exaggerated nationalism, and flout the principles of the League Covenant. The British Government’s policy in the matter of rearmament is beyond reproach. Mr Baldwin, in a vigorous exposition of the Cabinet’s aims, said it was essential that the country should not only be atlo to defend itself but be in a position to carry out its obligations to the League Covenant in any circumstances. Shortly afterwards Sir Samuel Hoare declared that the British rearmament programme meant no more and no less than proof of Britain’s determination to provide for both self-defence against an aggressor and the playing of her part in the enforcement by common action of international obligations. Mr Neville Chamberlain on another occasion spoke to the same effect, remarking: “We are spending large sums of money in order to make our country secure and to be able to carry out our obligations.” Thus the three leading members of the British Cabinet give an unequivocal assurance that the policy is guided only by two motives that are intertwined—-self-defence and faithfulness to the League Covenant. It is not surprising, therefore, that the British Labour Executive has decided to support the Government’s rearmament programme. Considering the circumstances, the urgency of the problem, and the obvious threats to world democracy, unanimous Labour co-operation might have been expected. The Hon. Robert Semple said, a week or so ago: “ Mother England to-day is the sheet anchor of democracy and the safety valve of the world. W© have got to hold fast to those traditions that are sacred to the heart of every British subject.” Obviously if the Empire is to do so every part of it must co-oper-ate in an effective scheme of defence.