BRITISH PARLIAMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 29 March 1928, Page 2

BRITISH PARLIAMENT

COMMONS DEBATE

Australian Press association & Sun.) LONDON. March 27. Speaking in the House oi Commons on the question of the control of the defence forces, Mr Baldwin said that the war problem was not one of centralisntion. The Cabinet must be responsible for defence as 'veil as for foreign and imperial policy. The Imperial Defence Committee, in a casts of emergency, could be made a deciding, instead of a consultative body. Since Lord Curzon’s death, lie (Mr Baldwin) bail retained Chairmanship of tho Committee of Imperial Defence, because lie recognised that it was most important. The Prime Minister must lie familiar with the defence problems and with the higher personnel of tlte services. The Committee of Imperial Defence bad been deputed to make detailed inquiries, and a sub-committee, the membership of which was over fifty, were at present sitting. An Imperial Defence College, for the training of officers in the combined strategy of the navy, the army and tor force, was, he said, remote. He hoped that it would ho believed that the Government was not allowing the country to be unprepared. It wn's keeping in constant view the necessary co-ordinated steps to be taken in a case of emergency. of wliicli the Dominions would be kept informed.

Mr Lloyd George said that he feared that we were not learning the lessons of the last war from the viewpoint of defence. The most decisive disaster of the war was the Dardanelles. It would not have occurred if there had been one control, and the'coast of Flanders would not have been lost if there had been a more complete co-ordination of the services. The most important elements of the Great War were foreign affairs, finance, shipping, man power, raw material, and organisation of the whole country and Empire, like a huge tank for crushing all opposition. What had delayed victory was not the absence of a most perfect and most gallant little army and a magnificent navy hut the lack of equipment. Newlyraised armies needed somebody in supreme control, or the same tiling would happen again. The present need was a vital minimum force, capable of rapid expansion and equipment when the need for it arose. The Navy, Army and Air Force were only branches of their defence, hut the competition in the three Departments resulted in a huge expenditure. If a single Cabinet Minister was given one hundred millions yearly, and was told to organise the whole defence, it would he more effective than the present system. He hoped that Mr Baldwin would not be content with the mere suggestions of Committee reports, hut would get some one really able to handle the thing as n whole. In a further reference to the Dardanelles, Mr Llovd George said: ‘‘There was no co-operation between the arinv and the navy at the Dardanelles. There was one Minister in control of one part of the attack, and another Minister in control of the other. It was only a question of a few hours at the end I Those hours could have been saved and a great deal more, if there had been co-operation—not in the sense of Committees to explore facts, but co-opera-tion in the command and the direction, and this worst disaster of the war would have been saved.” Lieut.-Colonel J. T. Moore Brubngon (Conservative) said that Mr Baldwin’s own speech was the most damning indictment of the present system that he ever had heard, and lie hoped that the Government would undertake that thenceforth the Chancellor of the Exchequer would present the service votes as a whole.

Major-General Sir J. Davidson (Conservative) said that the Government had taken an important step in establishing an Imperial College, but they were not going fast enough. Sir L. Worthington Evans (War Minister) replying, denied that the Departments were careless of overlapping or were competing with each other. Where there was a suspicion of duplication. the Committee of Imperial Defence made an investigation. There wits considerable Ministerial Party interruption during Sir L. W ortliington Evans’s speech, but the Consolidated Bill was read the third time without a division.