BRITAIN’S FORCES

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 128, 4 May 1925, Page 6

BRITAIN’S FORCES

SECOND EDITION

EMPIRE’S PACIFIC INTENTIONS. BUT WILL KEEP ABREAST OF TIMES. (By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received May 4, 11.15 a.m. LONDON, May 3. All spheres of public activity were eminently represented at the annual Royal Academy banquet, at Burlington House, presided over by Sii Francis Dicksee, flanked by the Duke of York,’ and surrounded by High Commissioners and members of the diplomatic corps. Earl Cavan, replying for the Army, anticipated the time when selected officers would be enabled to make tours of the Empire. He announced that Marshal Petain and General Debeney, chief of staff in France, had accepted an invitation to attend the next manoeuvres.

Sir Samuel Hoare, replying for the Air Force, described his 3500-mile air tour in the North East and the Middle East, from which he with Colonel Amery returned to London on the previous night.. He said the trip, which had been carried out in the Easter recess, would otherwise have taken a year. Mr W. C. Bridgeman, replying for the Imperial Forces, dwelt on Britain’s Pacific intentions and the absence of warlike clouds on the horizon, but he said Britain would permanently maintain the one-Power standard and keep abreast of the times. Regarding replacements, he expressed preparedness to consider any proposition for further limitations of armaments and pointed out that, of 345 ships laid down by the five grejt Powers since the war Britain was responsible for only eleven.—Reuter.