Sir John said that the government were convinced that the way was not by national legislation, "which Sought to abolish private manufac ture, but by regulation and control which ought to be in accordance with the. international treaty ne~ fotlated at Geneva and signed and Observed by all states Britain had a most complete and stringent system of controlling exports of any country in the world. No. consignment armame could leave without licence. Their custom and excise services were Un corrupted, The organization was adequate and there was no prospect whatever of arms being exported from Eritain without licence. Any British exporters had to establish to the satisfaction of the proper department. the real destination of their goods. They had refused the benefit of the export credit system to the exporter of munitions, and, as far the knew, they were the only country fin the world to do 5
Further, they never subsidized a private firm for producing arms. Fmey never allowed diplomatic or consular representatives abroad to Set as travellers or canvassers for armament firms. Tt was Britain Which took the initiative in placing an embargo on arms to Bolivia and Paraguay which 28 exporting countries haa now undertaken to observe. The present government, like previous governments, were not able to reach the conelusién that the remedy for the armaments problem lay [state tuonopoly. The true method was by International agreement and that the British Government were doing their utmost to promote.
"If we, on this government bench," said Sir John, "were not throwing Jour utmost energy into the cause of peace, we should mot merely be foolish beyond belief. We should be stark staring lunatics. We know better than any the intensity of the horror, which another war would "Trade in Murder"
'A trade in murder and dirty work by perfectly respectable admirals and cltizens—this was the description [applied to the traMe in arms by [Major Attlee when introducing the Labour motion which urged. the prohibition of the private manufac ture of arms, A "Grotesque" Story Six John Simon referred to the 50- called revelations in the Washington Senatorial inquiry. into the arms taille, He said he did not desire to [speak without due respect of an in~ vestigation by another great and friendly country, but some of the methods in arriving at conclusions didn't commend themselves to English practice, He gave as an instance a telegram (which was produced in the Washington inquiry' as evidence) from an unsuccessful agent of an American armaments firm who attributed his failure to secure an order from Poland to the influence of King George who, he said, summoned the Polish Ambassador and emphasized the importance of Poland buying British arms.
entirely grotesque. He added that Sir Joun described. the story, the King. was not "a highly placed British Government personage," as styled in the synopsis of the Senate's Inquiry, but he was a sovereign who, they all knew, was perfectly incapable of having any connection with this silly story.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.