"I can tell
WHITE HORSE
blindfold
... it's equal to a fine liqueur"
Sole Agents for South China: JARDINE MATHESON AND COMPANT LTD.
Here's Luck!
EWO
BEER
Bringing Up Father
BY GOLEY IT'S GITTIN' CHILLY. IN THE HOUSE- I HAD BETTER”“”“ RUN DOWN" ANS
AT TH
TAKE A
THE CHINA MA
An Open Letter To
ONE THOUSAND POU
RE-ARMAMENT
DEAR MR. & MRS, CITIZEN,-
that Sir
mission about the deplorable condi- tion of the Navy in 1985. You be- tween 1919 and 1935
You will have noticed t tot mine 1,100,000,000 on t5 you had spent
an additional loan of £400,000,000 to was ill equipped and obsolete after finance armaments, making at least that expenditure, what other con- £800,000,000 to be raised in the five clusion can you draw except that years 1937 to 1942.
there were incompetent hands and, This, of course, will only be a perhaps, tarry fingers on the job? part of your expenditure on arma- After the testing time of last ments. In the five year period you year's crisis, there were wholesale will also spend at least £1,300,000,- complaints of deficient equipment, 000 out of taxation. In five years, general disorganisation of supplies therefore, the arms bill is going to and unpreparedness.
cost you not less than £2,100,000,- 000, and it may be more..
The Minister of War admitted
This is a staggering figure. Al- that London's anti-aircraft defences were insufficient. Anti-aircraft though you will foot the bill-even for the loans, since they will be se- guns that should have been at their stations were non-existent. Some of cured against your ability to pay the
the guns available were out of date.. interest and repay the borrowed
Yet the 3.7 gun, which you were told money you must find it difficult to was the last word in defence against understand just how much £2,100,- air attack, had not been put into 000,000 really is.
production, although the War De-. partment accepted it în 1937.
It means that for
every hour of every day for five years you will pay £48,000— nearly £1,000 a minute for aeroplanes, guns, battleships and other war equip- ment.
In other words, you are going. to pay EVERY HOUR the sum allocated to keep 600 unemploy- ed families for A YEAR. You know why you are having to find this colossal sum of money. It is the price of Great Britain's be- trayal of the Collective Peace system und the League of Nations. When, in 1931, the Labour Administration was thrown out of office, this coun- try's defence, measured in terms of Collective Security, was the strong- est in the world. Successive Conser- vative Governments have destroyed that security. Now, because of their futile policy, you are being called upon to make good the gaps in our defence.
Are you going to get value for your money? There are strong grounds for thinking you will not, if the present incompetent Govern- ment has the spending of it,
Now you have been told by Sir Charles Harington, Governor of Gibraltar last year, that "Gib.,” strategic post of the Empire, had only four anti-aircraft guns' and few gas masks. Do not be sur- prised if other revelations are
Severe Criticism of the National Govern- ment Is Contained In This Article By GEORGE DALING
2,000 emple A.R.P. exercises
muddle and con high quarters. says:
"The crisis reality, obsolete querading as eff squadrons, grave most essential d shortages of spe which might well any operations of forthcoming about failure to de- erged the disquie fend the Empire. You cannot organisation fu have incompetents in high office fective." and escape the consequences.
AIR FORCE DEFECTS Apart from the optimistic utter- ances of Ministers, which often have MUDDLE AND WASTE
to be retracted when the truth leaks You must remember that in the out, there is no evidence that the
These are inde made with all th officer who has i of his facts.
It seems stran these lamentable": from an expendi
twenty years since the last war Army is as fully equipped as it 000 on the Air
.
Since 1937, duction was large contrac firms in the “A fits of these '- have leaped un Hawker Siddel
ended, you have spent £3,500,000,000 should be. Yet, you have spent £1,- on the Army, Navy and Air Force, 500,000,000 on the War Department years. The only
'can draw is that r a sum equal to the whole national in the last twenty years, and on that has been wasted. income for one year. In other expenditure there should be no shor- words, every family in the land has tage of guns and other material. contributed £300 in twenty years to The Air Force, too, is admittedly our defence services.
below strength. Group Captain L. And the result? Even responsi- L. MacLean, who resigned from the ble Government spokesmen have R.A.F. in protest against the "in- been compelled to admit disquieting competence of the Air Ministry and deficiencies, Inadequate equipment its policy of hiding the truth behind £600,000 last yea and a record of muddle and waste. a smoke screen of misleading public cent. to its shar You remember Lord Baldwin's and statements, has revealed some of the Aviation Compa
+
BY GOLLY WHAT
WAS THAT I FELI OVER ON THE STARS?LUCKY 1
FOUND THE LIGHT SWITCH:
By
MAGGIE BROTH THAT. KIN SLE ON A BA WIRE FE
Cope." 1919, Kha