Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 1939. AWAITING AN OPPORTUNITY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 March 1939, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age TH URSDAY, MARCH 2, 1939. AWAITING AN OPPORTUNITY.

MORE than once, in recent, speeches, . the British IMime Minister has spoken of the tremendous financial btudens on these lines is not yet in sight.. ■ In the House of Commons on February 2.1, Mr Chamberlain raised the question whether the annual cost of the maintenance of these increased armaments, together with interest and sinktodto defence loans, .night not ® Jnture than it would be possible to extract from the taxpajers n t of enrrent revenue. In thus conjuring up the spectre of p «ible banln-u -tey and in other ways Mr Chamber »m has more than sufficiently justified his own declared view that it would be criminal to allow the arms situation to go on ceve oping without making some determined effort to put an end it. It mav be a question, in these circumstances, whether, the British Prime Minister is not allowing hnnselt to be unduly bv the obstacles that stand in the way of internal o < 1 action to'set limits Io the waste and the menace ot the aimaments race. ' He declares himself eager to find an approach to the imitation of armaments, but is of opinion that the June has not vet arrived when the calling of a conference on the subject would be a practical proposition. This was the riev he sta on Februarv 21 and he repeated it in his reply, reported .vest dav to further questions in the House of Commons. Before a conference could be called to deal with the limitation of armaments and the removal of barriers to international Hade, h . said, a considerable amount of preliminary preparation would be necessary. He added that: As soon as he thought it possible to convene such a conference with any chance of success, he certainly would do uO, and would whenever he thought it might be useful, communicate with the President of the United States of America on the mattei. From all this if mav bo inferred that Mr Chamberlain is of opinion that there must be fair prospects ot general agreement before it will be worth while to convene a conference on the limitation of armaments. It is probably doing him no nijustice to suppose that he considers agreement by Germany and Italj, and possiblv by .Japan, to be necessary if a conference on the limitation of armaments is to succeed. Acceptance of these stipulations, however, would be equivalent virtually to begging the whole question of the limitation of armaments in our time and in any conditions that can at present be envisaged. What needs Io be considered as “a practical proposition is whether it is practicable for nations peacefully inclined to impose a limitation of armaments on those that are not. No amount of preliminary preparation can at present be imagined that would make Germany, Italy and Japan enter a conference on the limitation of armaments, ready to seek and to assist agreement. The proclaimed policy of these countries is to rely on armed strength and to develop it to the utmost. Challenged and menaced -in this way, Britain, France, the United Stales and other nations can do nothing else, as individual nations, than arm to the teeth. Since, however the indefinite expansion of armaments threatens, to bring about economic ruin, or still more overwhelming disaster it appears to bo well worth while for the democracies to consider whether il is open to them, bv combined effort, to provide an alternative.’ If the world is to wait, as Mr Chamberlain apparently is prepared to wail, until the totalitarian States are prepared to co-operate, a conference' on the limitation of armaments ■ mav be postponed for many years to come. It is 1 airly obvious that in the extent to which they resign themselves to this slate of affairs, the democracies will be playing directly into the hands of the nations which decline even to consider the limitation of armaments. Any improvement in the existing situation and outlook evidently must depend on united action by the democracies. That action, if it look the form of an exercise of economic pressure on war-mongering nations, undoubtedly would in\ol\e dangers, but it is improbable that these would be an\ gieatei than those that arise al present from an unchecked competition in armaments. The duty of a British Prime Minister in these critical days surely is to insist upon Hie vital need for co-opera-tion between the democracies if they are in any degree to safeguard their own future and that of humanity. As Mr ('hamberlain has said, “it would be criminal to allow the arms situation to go on developing without making some determined effort to put an end to it.” His present attitude towards that situation, however, recalls the jibe ol the late G. K. Chesterton that the practical politician thrives by offering practical objections to any action.