RAW MATERIALS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 April 1939, Page 4

RAW MATERIALS

SUPPLIES FROM BRITISH EMPIRE NO DOG-IN-MANGER POLICY. / REMOVING CAUSES OF WAR. Sir Samuel' Hoare, Home Secretary, speaking at Plymouth recently, declared that the British Government intended to adopt no dog-in-the-man-ger attitude on the subject of raw materials in the colonies, reports the “Daily Telegraph.” “How often I thought,” he said, “when I was Foreign Secretary, that we tended in the years after the Great War to ignore the root causes of future wars. We concentrated too much upon the reduction of armaments and too little upon the causes that make armaments necessary. ■ “It was with this feeling in my mind that I raised at Geneva the question of the supply of raw materials to the countries of the world, and I made it clear, on behalf of the British Government, that we intended to adopt no dog-in-the-manger policy in ' our great colonial empire. What I said then genuinely. represented our views, and it still represents them. “If the supply of raw materials is likely to be the cause of future disputes, there is no rea/on/Whatever why this question and,' indeed, every trade question, should not be settled by discussion and negotiation.” Z’ He believed that, so far from a weakening of the British spirit following the Munich Agreement, there had been in recent months a national awak J ening, such as we only saw in the great moments of this country’s history. SUBMARINE DANGER LESS. Quoting the Prime Minister’s pledge to France in the House of Commons, he said: —“Those are not the words of the feeble wavefer whom the Opposition disparage, but of a man' resolute in mind and body, who is bent upon maintaining the 'peace of the world, but who is equally determined to maintain the vital interests of the British Empire and of the country with which the Empire’s interests are ■ so closely united.” Speaking of our accelerated construction of warships, Sir Samuel said that no less important than the construction of ships had been the preparations that the Navy had been making against the two most dangerous forms of attack, attack by submarines and attack by air. “As to attacks by submarines,” he said, “I am convinced, as a result of war experience and great developments made since the war ended, that we shall never again be faced with a submarine danger upon anything like the scale that we surmounted in the Great War.

“As to air attack, I am convinced that great progress has been made with armour and armament and every kind of defensive device and that, as a result, the new Fleet will be able to maintain its essential duty of keeping open the high roads of the Empire” PLANES FROM U.S. ARRIVING. Of air defence, he said: “I cannot give numbers of aircraft. It is not in the public-interest. But I can tell you that the production is now definitely above the estimates that are generally given. ■ i“It is also to be noted with satisfad* tion that the aeroplanes that we have bought from America are already arriving, and that the foundations have been laid for a large future production in Canada. Once again the new world is coming into redress the balance of the old.” In a tribute to Mr Hore-Belisha, War Secretary, who presided at the meeting, Sir Samuel said: “When in a short time he gives an account of his stewardship to the House of Commons, he will have an encouraging story to tell of the production of antiaircraft guns, of the recruitment and the rearmament of the Army, and ofthe filling of the gaps that inevitably showed themselves in this as in every other country when the crisis came last September”