REARMING FOR PEACE.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 26, 15 February 1937, Page 6

REARMING FOR PEACE.

The talk fs every wliere of arinaiuents. Secretly at first and then openlyx Germany has for years been making nlilitary preparations that in the end have far exceeded the -needs of mere defence. Italy, while professing joyalty to the League pf Nations Covenant, pursued much the same course. Confident in her new strength, Germany marched an ttrmy into the Rhineland zone which she liad undertaken, not oiily under tiie imposed Peace Treaty but also under tlie voluntary Loearno Paet, to keep entirely free from military occupation. Mussolini, on his part, bade pfacticaJ. defiance to the League and all its otlier constituent nations by making* war on Abyssinia, a fellow member, and carried it to spectacular sUceess without anyone daring to lift an armed hand against him. Now we have a virtual Italo-German alliance, with both countries in liighjy acquisitive mood and so presenting a continual menace to the peace of Europe and of the world. All other countries are just now practically atremble wondering what these two, and Germany in particular, may clioose to do next. Only a week or two ago Herr Hitler was speaking smoothly of his desire for the preservation of peace and for establishing friendly relations with everyone excepting Soviet Russia. To-day we have oue of his mouthpieces, Dr. Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, pointing the finger of scorn at both Great Britain and France, glorying in the teariiig up of treaties and in Germany 's readiness for war. It is only under conditions such as these that Great Britain has at length bethought her that it is high time she. set about girding up her loins and prepariiig for any qventuality that may occur* It has to be recognised that, for the tittie being at aiiy rate, the League of Nations is practically impotent to place any curb upon the aggressive ambitions of either Germany or Italy should either, or both in combination, set about attempting to satisfy them by further displays of force. For Great Britain, therefore, tliere is no recourse, in the interests of peace, than to repair the neglect of the last fifteen years and to hdsien in making herself strong cnough to offer some effective opposition to dictatorial domination and to restrain it from further exhibitions of its power. The exigeftcies of. the time liave called for no halfmeasures and consequently we have the peop-le of Great Britain called upon to provide rearmament funds that run into some hundreds of millions. The sum total of possible expenditure naturally looks like something immense, but it • soon takes shape as being quite moderate when we have regard to the expenditure 6n armaments that has been going steadily on elsewhere iiuring recent years. For 1929 the expeiiditure on warlike preparations throughout the world has been placed at the equivalent of £l,250-million sterling, For last year it is estimated at the prodigious sum of £2,900million, which is nearer fojir than .three times the amount so spent in the year before the Great Wai*. From this we may gain some conception of the leeway which Great Britain has to make up if her influence as a factor in the preservation oi peace is to count for very much. By those who are giving any thought to the situation that has thus been created it will have been noted how particularly careful the British Government lias been to indicatt that actual expenditure will be entirely dependent on the attitude adopted by other countries. It remains only for them, and for Germany in particular, to give practical effeci in a limitation of armaments to tlieir pacific professions for Great Britain to reduce her own expenditure. For the time being she is making in £s sterling a like demonstration to those which thev have been making in actually armed legions. At the same time, however, she has sliown by' speedily initiating her programme that she is thoroughly in earncst, and we can but await, and not without some naturai anxiety, the results that may follow. i