The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1930. MR BALDWIN’S MOTION

Southland Times, Issue 21100, 4 June 1930, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1930. MR BALDWIN’S MOTION

Again the MacDonald Ministry has emerged from a vital division with a narrow majority. This time the voting followed a debate on the Naval Conference and the small margin favouring the Government would seem to indicate that the House of Commons is by no means sure of the efficacy of the naval restrictions arrived at by the recent meeting in London, but it would be unwise to adduce from this division that public opinion in the Old Country is as evenly divided. Throughout the discussions the Government was assisted by its naval experts, and reduced to fundamentals the agreement reached does very little more than extend for a further period and over other categories of warships the understanding reached at the Washington Conference, when Britain agreed to a naval parity with the United States. There is room for disagreement about the wisdom of reducing the number of cruisers, but the naval experts are fully seized of the responsibilities they have to shoulder, and their advice to the political heads of the Government must have been coloured by the Empire’s requirements. If risks have been incurred, there are some advantages on the other side. While, as some critics have said, this agreement may leave room ■for building competition' within the limits of the agreement, the spirit of the agreement is that there shall be no race in arma-

men-ts, and that the two countries shall go about their naval affairs in an atmosphere of mutual confidence. This plea for harmony is one of the most potent features of the instrument forged in London, and the effects of the agreement should be felt in all the dealings between the two countries. At the same time, the United States and Britain in unmistakable fashion have given an earnest of their eagerness to make the Kellogg Peace Pact something more than a collection of pious phrases, and to stand definitely on the anti-martial character of the League of Nations. Nations take risks when they are engaged in war; they must bo prepared to take risks for the maintenance of peace, and if the condition of the Franco-Italian relations is cited in contrast the value of the naval understanding binding Britain, the United States and Japan will be better appreciated. On the business side, the MacDonald Government can plead with some justification that it has saved the country from heavy expenditure. Without this naval agreement reductions in the British naval programme would have been impossible, and there must have been before the Chancellor of the Exchequer always the possibility of an enlarged outlay to keep the strength of the British Navy up to that of its nearest rival, the United States Navy. When the commitments under this treaty are being considered it is necessary to envisage the prospects in the light of the conditions, ruling to-day. The United States is the only country with a navy comparable to the British, and most of the British public men have declared that war between the two is unthinkable. If that is so, a definite limitation of naval strength becomes advisable, even essential, and this has been achieved. Probably influences other than naval were at work in connection with the voting, but Mr Baldwin should really be pleased that he was not compelled by the division in the House of Commons to go to the electors on the naval issue, because, if it is possible to judge public opinion at this distance, the result would have been a signal victory for the Labour Government. It is too soon, yet, to see the effects of the London Naval Conference, but if the results of the Washington Conference can be taken as a guide, the immediate future will see a better understanding between the three countries involved in the agreement and an extension of the international confidence out of which it springs to other nations, with a consequential advance in the cause of world peace. For that it is surely worth taking some risk.