THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1913. EXPENDITURE ON ARMAMENTS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 26 September 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1913. EXPENDITURE ON ARMAMENTS.

The expenditure on armaments by the Great Powers of the world is annually becoming more exasperating to the people. It Ls being vigorously prosecuted that the time will oome when the nations that are being exploited will rise up- in protest. The British Government realises the wastefulness, the extravagance of the thing, but it is so invoilved in the commerce of the world that it dare not cease its operations. In a recent speech in the House of Commons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a striking speech, in which he said:—"l am genuinely alarmed about the expenditure upon armaments. But there is not the slightest prospect of a reduction. Tlx© prospect is all the other way, and there is no use concealing the fact. It is because every oonmiry in the world is, for the moment, somehow or other, being lured on to expenditure," he said. "It it no ue© apportioning the blama®. We are just scaring each other on to great expenditure. There is no great body of public opinion in any country which has the courage to stand up to the

people who are responsible for the expenditure and say it has got to stop. I feel confident that it will end in a great disaster —I won't say to this country, though it is just possible that it may end in a disaster here. If the protest oomes, it will not be about . the expenditure but about the consequences of the expenditure. I don't believe we shall ever get in any country in Europe a great revolution because the Government is spending money on armaments. But Ave live under the consequences of that expenditure, and it may be that the inevitable consequence of sucih a state of tilings will be something in the nature of a revolutionary protest." After commending to the House a study of the German tax law" to see what "real property and increment taxation meant/' Mr Lloyd George proceeded: "Until there is complete understanding, with 00-operation, to arrest expenditure on armaments you cannot stop it. I cannot seo how it is going to be stopped One country dare not play it. It is much too perilous a thing to do. One country can stop tip to the point of danger, but once you pasa the point of danger and something .happened, disaster would cdnte, and of that we "cannot run the rak. lam not sure that international co-Operation cannot somehow htrlirranged, especially after the events of this year, when it is fsesh in the minds of peopla what a horrible thing war in and how very ruinous it is to 'tfie ccawnercial, industrial, and sooial Ef* of 'the countries which iwie subjected ,to it® ravages. But -until this is done', there is nothing} in froai of us but increased expenditure, and increased ©xpendtowa me«t»s increased'taasation. Expenditure #n armaments was not merely wasteful, he submitted ; it paralysed the very forces that creat!©d wealth. The war in the East and the feverish increase of armaments in France, Germany and Russia had 'chilled the heart of trade.''After a brief disdussidn, the Finance Bill, on which the debate arose, was read' a third time.