The Possible Enemy From one point of view Mr. Lloyd
George was right in his analysis of the international situation in the debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday when he considered which of. the Great Powers of the world might be a possible menace to this country and eliminated all of them except Germany. But a direct conflict with Germany is altogether improbable, for there is no cases belli visible or easily imaginable. And apart from the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, super- seded in effect by the agreement to grant equality to Germany, there is no good reason why the German air force should not be on a parity with ours. In any disarmament agreement it certainly would be. Appre- hension regarding that can easily be exaggerated, as it was by Mr. Churchill. The real cause for anxiety lies in Germany's withdrawal from the collective security system. The equality that was promised her was conditional on the existence of a system which would provide security for all nations. The system exists, and Germany is outside it. While that continues, as Mr. Baldwin said, there will be distrust instead of confi- dence everywhere. Germany, it is true, can claim that she has made reasonable disarmament proposals which have not been taken up. Once the Saar plebiscite is over—or sooner—those proposals should be exhaustively explored. The supplementary estimates foreshadowed by Mr. Baldwin might after all not be necessary.
