White Paper

In the form of a crisp White Paper of 19 closely-printed pages the House of Commons received last week a fateful invitation from the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin. In a general way the Prime Minister invited a confidence vote of which the result might be to spend $1,500,000,000 as rapidly as possible for further Armament, or to spend immensely more, should His Majesty's Government think best. The White Paper was a bid to be accorded virtual carte blanche--billions for Armament, and no questions asked. In the words of the paper: "Any attempt to estimate the total cost of the measures described would be premature."

Immediately Laborites & Liberals comprising His Majesty's Loyal Opposition introduced a motion that "This House . . . has no confidence in His Majesty's Ministers whose unworthy and outrageous foreign policy has largely contributed to the present state of world unrest." No one in the House last week thought this motion could succeed against Squire Baldwin's solid majority of Conservative M.P.'s.

The recent attack on Mr. Baldwin's "thinking machine" by Elder Conservative Statesman & Nobel Peace Prizeman Sir Austen Chamberlain (TIME, Feb. 24) was last week answered by Squire Baldwin with a blunt refusal to part with one iota of his prerogatives. But the Prime Minister did say he would appoint a Deputy to act for him the greater part of trie time as Chairman of the Council of Imperial Defense which will largely spend the Armament billions. Who this Deputy will be, Mr. Baldwin did not yet choose to tell the House.

Specific Measures. The White Paper would lay down two new British capital ships and an aircraft carrier, launch five new cruisers, increase Navy personnel 6,000 by March 1937. It would raise four new battalions of British infantry, multiply the present Army's effectiveness several times by costly mechanization, modernize field artillery and anti-aircraft defense. It would increase the Royal Air Force from 1,750 to 2,150 planes, with more than a hint of going on to build up as fast as possible the world's most powerful air force.

Boiling Labor. In the immediate present--and this was what raised British Labor's blood to boiling point last week-- the White Paper would virtually put industry throughout the British Isles on a basis of Wartime control by the Government over the activities of Capital & Labor. Under a Prime Minister who is the leisured scion of Baldwins Ltd., hereditary British iron founders, Labor considered itself sure last week to get the meagre end of a generous square deal for Capital. Under the White Paper scheme, selected British firms capable of armament production would be guaranteed in peace time sufficient Government orders to keep their works operating profitably, ready for instant changeover to highest-geared war production of munitions. Labor did not believe the White Paper's loose intimation that "excessive profits" will not be permitted Capital.

Oldsters in Clubland. In gouty circles of extreme Tory diehardism last week elderly Britons were incautiously beginning to vow in their London clubs that "By Gad, Sir, this Rearmament will give us back Old England!" They were cocksure that the proletariat, kept increasingly busy and well paid on munitions orders, will make no trouble and that Imperial Defense will work out in such a way as to squash even those malcontents the Free State Irish by transferring to the west of the British Isles beyond the immediate reach of German air attack enormous new concentrations of Might.

Not only among such snorting Oldsters in Clubland but among hard young men who count on doing as well out of the next war as their fathers did out of the last optimism was rife. Small-talk and chit-chat were of the Army's new "tank-piercing rifle" and the scandal that Czechoslovakia's "Bren" machine gun is so good that British armorers are going to have to pay huge royalties in order to lease the patents.

Definitely a godsend to Stanley Baldwin this week was Adolf Hitler's rupturing of treaties. As the Armament debate opened in the House, the Prime Minister, famed for the amazing succession of lucky breaks with which his career is strewn, was able to point, by implication, at scrap-of-papering Germany and intone: "One nation might make war; it might take 50 to secure peace. We must have increased armaments!"

So obvious to every European was the effect Herr Hitler's intimidation was having upon Britain--what with Foreign Secretary Eden urging not punishment of Germany but consideration of the treaty-breaker's terms --that Mr. Baldwin instinctively asserted the contrary, whistling to keep up Britain's courage. "Neither His Majesty's Government nor this people would ever be intimidated by threats," he boomed. "As a nation we could go on longer than others and, if driven to it [war] we should not hesitate!" After these words of fire, the Prime Minister, conscious that it will take time for Britain to arm tremendously, reaffirmed his immediate policy in words of milk: "The only hope lies in the achieving of a tripartite friendship among France, Germany and ourselves."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.