The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1929 ANGLING FOR DISARMAMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 787, 7 October 1929, Page 7

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1929 ANGLING FOR DISARMAMENT

FOUR of the five major Powers in the world today spend £■410,000,000 a year on all forms of defence and preparations for war. Of these the United States leads with an expenditure of £148,000,000; Great Britain is next with £110,000,000; France is third with £105,000,000, while Japan, a notable last, spends only £47,000,000 a year. These facts of armaments more than justify the fancies of disarmament.

There is no sense in pretending that a great deal of the noble talk about disarmament is other than fanciful. Apart from the honest desire of representative men and nations for a recuperative century of world peace, the practical facts arrayed against the dreams of idealists are formidable. The five Sea Powers—Great Britain, the United States of America, France, Japan and Italy—maintain among them in varying proportions no fewer than 61 capital ships, 181 cruisers, 447 submarines, 741 destroyers and 14 aircraft carriers—a total of 1,444 fighting craft. In addition to naval strength, the armies and air forces of all nations would suggest to a stranger from another planet that this world, a decade after the worst war in human history, is still an armed camp, wasting treasure which, if spent on social and spiritual development, might make a heaven of earth. Clear knowledge of the facts of extravagant defence and preparations for war will help, however, to fortify hope that something good in the cause of world peace may emerge from the historic parley in the United States these days between President Hoover and the Labour Prime Minister of Great Britain. There is reason for increased hopefulness among the nations they represent and the other nations for whom they strive to set an inspirational example. Already, ever so much more than parity has been conceded by the United States in the form of hospitality to Mr. Ramsay MacDonald on his arrival in America for the purpose of having a heart-to-heart talk with Mr. Hoover on the international question of naval disarmament. Literally and in every other way the welcome to the British Prime Minister was a broadside salvo of American enthusiasm and goodwill. A salute of 19 guns flashed and thundered from Fort Jay; gay New York rushed with open arms to take Britain’s peace envoy to its bosom; and everywhere in and about the city the people demonstrated their friendship. The Federal City of ashington excelled itself, and there, amid the beauty that only an American autumn can give to embowered avenues and gardens, the national heart of the United States beat in a joyous greeting to the greatest Commoner in the British Empire and his party. This was the kind of welcome that should go far to establish throughout the world’s greatest Republic and the world’s greatest Empire a stronger bond of unity and friendship. And then, following on the tumult of tribute and gladness, the American President and the British Prime Minister, as sensible men and plain democrats, hied away to an angler’s retreat in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, there, by a rushing stream and over a camp-fire, to talk of disarmament and international peace. Their purpose and goal, indeed, represea* big fishing. It should be noted that Mr. MacDonald, even at the initial moment of emotionalism when he landed on American soil, did not lose his head or give way to illusionment. The boundless hospitality almost made him afraid, hut it did not weaken his judgment or dim his vision. Britain’s Labour Leader explained carefully that the problems of armaments were full of hidden difficulties, calling for patient working at details in an atmosphere of mutual confidence. And he also took care to emphasise the fact that the joint mission of the two nations could be nothing more than an appeal and an example to all other nations to gather round the council board of peace. Mr. Hoover’s view has not yet been disclosed, but he also must know that great difficulties, not only in Europe, hut in his own country, must be overcome before the ultimate will of the United States and Great Britain may be accepted as an example for other nations. It has to be remembered that the last word on American disarmament lies with the Senate, and it has been the Senate, more than anything else, that has scuttled many stately ships of peace and international idealism during the past ten years. Observers only can hope that the quiet parleys in \ irginia will solve the problem of parity and disperse those “hidden difficulties” of disarmament among so-called civilised nations.