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Hokitika Guardian, 20 December 1933, Page 4

Genewau Sir Archibald MontgomeryMassingbdrd Chief of the Imperial General Staff, presided at the first of a course of lectures in military studies given at King’s College, University of London. Those who realised what Britain’s liabilities were would realise also that the War Office was faced with an extraordinarily difficult problem, considering the financial state of the country, he said. The amount of money that.could be spared for the military forces was very limited. Their major problems were the' policing of the Empire, the manning of the naval , bases toward the East on which the Navy must depend for any action it t o ok in the Pacific, and the necessity for making some preparations, however distant, for intervention on the Continent of Europe if Britain were called on to implement the commitments we had entered into by the Locarno Treaty and other pacts. With regard to policing the Empire, when application was made to the War Office for a battalion to be- sent to Shanghai, it was found that neither India nor Egvpt had a battalion to- spare, and, finally, a Guards battalion was sent to the Sudan to release'another battalion going to India, which was diverted to China. .That showed how very narrow a margin they had. He did not think people realised how much more policing they had to do in the Empire since the war. There had hardly been a single year since 1918 in which they had not been implicated in a- mutiny,, a rising, or some form of aggression. They were policing the Empire on the barest margin. Major General Sir Hugh Elies, in the course of his lecture, referred to the Locarno Treaty as one which dotted the big i’s and crossed the big t's so far as this country’s commitments were concerned. He said there had been an agitation to abrogate that treaty, or, to put it quite bluntly, to “rat,” A proposal of that sort was of great interest to the professional soldier, because if they could abrogate one treaty they might repudiate (another. If) for example, ou r credit were called in question in the Pacific, India, and Egypt, there would be ihany hot chestnuts to pull out of the fire. In connection with the Locarno Treaty the professional soldier could not dismiss the contingency of military action with or against a first-class military power.