The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : No
news in this Parliament has had a more disturbing effect on members than the announcement of the building by Germany of the twelve submarines. Sir John Simon is known to have had specific assurances from Herr Hitler that there was no question of a race in naval armaments with Great Britain. I am informed that he told the Foreign Secretary that in his judgement the building by the Kaiser of the High Seas Fleet was the biggest blunder in the history of German Foreign Policy; and that the Nazis would never repeat it. Members are uneasily asking whether this assurance has any more value than some of the other specific statements from Herr Hitler which have been belied soon after by his own actions. The rearmament men are of course jubilant, because they believe, probably rightly, that the electors will be far less likely to quarrel with increased expenditure in the fighting services when it can be represented that there is a menace directly threatening the safety of the English shores.
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