BALDWIN REPLIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 137, 31 August 1927, Page 9

BALDWIN REPLIES

LEARNING FROM FAILURE TASK OF STATESMEN LONDON, Monday. Mr. Baldwin sent the following letter in reply to Lord Cecil: 1 deeply regret your resignation, but it is a ,ource of satisfaction to know that it i is not due to any personal difficulty. 1 am concerned with your statement that you and the Cabinet cannot agree on the broad policy of disarmament. However, an examination of your views inclines me to the opinion that, having decided upon your resignation, you exaggerate any differences that have arisen. “Shortly after we came into office out views on the broad question of disarmament were stated in Sir Austen Chamberlain's speech at Geneva on the subject of the Protocol in terms which were approved by the whole Cabinet. He said the British Empire had shown by her deeds as well as by her words the fullest accord with the League’s ideals of arbitration, disarmament and security. . “Successive administrations in Britain, with the full approval of the selfgoverning ominions, not only ravured the arbitration theory, but availed themselves of the practice, having disarmed to the limits of national safety. BRITAIN BLAMELESS

“Essentially this policy does not differ from your own views, even as now stated. We have pursued it ever i since with considerable effect on dss- | armament and the peace of the world.

“Our differences with you do not arise from the broad policy so much as from our views on the most effective means of forwarding them. But even here we have largely agreed.

“As regards the League s Preparatory Commission you yourself presided over the sub committee which was preparing the British case, unci practically drafted your own instructions. Regarding the recent thre Powers Conference, again I think you exaggerate the differences between vourself and the Government. But this I must say, I can take no blame to myself or my colleagues, for, until the very moment the telegram trom Geneva Informed us the conference had ended, we were still working for a compromise which might yet attain the twin objects of limitation of armaments and national security.

THE TASK OF STATESMEN “As regards the future, I refuse to share your pessimism. It is true no great progress has yet been made along the lines of world conferences, but there has been progress already through other less ambitions metnous. For example, the Washington and Locarno Treaties and the settlement with Turkey. All these led to some measure of disarmament. Our own aggregate expenditure on armaments has fallen each year and Governments and peoples are more deeply realising every year the importance of the ques“l do not mean that I am hopeless of the three-Powers conference, despite is apparent failure. Yet the result would have been an reduction of naval armaments and in the long run a better understanding of each other’s problems. “The difficulties, as I have always known, are many and great, but that, in my opinion, is no reason for throwing up the sponge. It is the task of statesmen to learn from failure as well as from success.

“My only regret is that you no longer are willing to continue as our principal representative at the international discussions on disarmament, and that we must seek elsewhere 101 the help for which, in the we have turned to you, —A. and N./~