HOPES OF PEACE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 February 1939, Page 6

HOPES OF PEACE

MR CHAMBERLAIN ON WORLD ARMAMENTS Way of Escape If all Nations Want It PRESENT POLICY MUST BRING EUROPE TO BANKRUPTCY BUT RELAXATION ONLY POSSIBLE BY GENERAL AGREEMENT. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.20 a.m.) RUGBY, February 21. A suggestion that the vast competitive rearmament confronting the nations of the world was perhaps the result of misunderstanding, and an appeal to the Opposition to do nothing to increase such misunderstanding, by captious criticism or suspicion, were two important points in a speech with which the Prime Minister, Mr Neville Chamberlain, opened the second day’s debate in the House of Commons on defence. British armaments were for defence and defence alone, Mr Chamberlain declared, and if it were true that others had no more intention of aggression than Britain had, then the conclusion to which they must all come was that the various nations were piling up these ruinous armaments under a misunderstanding. "I am very much inclined to believe that there is a groat deal of truth in that.” Mr Chamberlain said, and he cited a well-known passage from Lord Grey on the way in which mutual fear begets mistrust and evil imaginings. Mr Chamberlain concluded his speech with the (words: “While I cannot consent that we should relax our armaments in any degree until we can do so by general agreement with others who will do the same, I, do say that I feel it our duty, and the duty of this Government in particular, to watch for every opportunity that may come to try to persuade other Governments of the folly of the course we all are pursuing,, and to put an end to a situation which, if it is persisted in, must bring bankruptcy to every country in Europe.”