Of course the decision of the Cabinet will be called
a compromise and even a new form of economy. It will be said that what is to be spent on cruisers—" vital to our safety be saved on scrapping superfluous dockyards and in other ways. But the fact will remain that there will. be expenditure where there might have been saving, and—worse still— that we shall seem to set a bad example to the whole world just when we are exposed to no particular danger and when we have an exceptional opportunity to display, our determination and sincerity as a nation in the cause of disarmament. No paper, we venture to say, was more emphatic and persistent in demanding that we should pour out money in protecting ourselves against the obvious German menace, but now we mean to be as persistent in proclaiming our conviction' that economy- and . the -development of international arbitration and- eonsutation are the only efficient way of national safety,
