Sir Edward Grey, as the guest of the Manchester Chamber
of Commerce, made en important speech on Tuesday. Expenditure on armaments was not a British but a Euro- pean question, and a remarkable thing about it was that while any large increase in the building programme of any great country in Europe stimulated other countries, it did not follow that the slackening off of any one brought about diminution in others. As regards Germany, the ships she was laying down this year were in fulfilment of the Naval Law of many years ago. If we cut down our naval programme this or next year, he did not think it would affect the building programmes of Europe. The apprehension and dislike of armaments were especially strong in this country, not because we felt the strain most—we felt it least—but because as business men we were shocked by the waste, and as thinking men we had forebodings that in the long run this excessive expenditure must lead to disaster and sink the ship of European prosperity and civilization. Education was needed, rather than appeals which foreign Powers would not welcome and were not prepared to receive. But the appeal must be to the feelings as well as to the intellect, and the only schoolmaster who could perform this task in Europe was Finance.
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