Cabinet Allots Extra Funds of Frs. 3,200,000,000
The Prime Minister declared that he would not tear up a single article, not even Article XVI, of the Covenant, in the hope that some day a reconstituted League might be able really to use the powers and functions which it had been originally given.
If the League would throw off its shams and pretences, which everyone sees through, Mr. Chamberlain went on, and declare its intention to use moral force and be the focus of world public opinion, it would multiply itself and, perhaps, draw to itself again some of those who had lost faith in it.
In conclusion, the Prime Minister said he prayed that the awful responsibility of the question—will you plunge your country into war?—might not fall upon him.
"Nevertheless," he added, "does not an equally heavy opportunity lie on a man who feeling, as I do, that if we do not take action we may presently be faced with that frightful question—and who feels that by ta ing action we shall do something to avert it?
"I would be failing in my duty if I failed to take that action now—as I have done." (Loud cheers).
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.