The Government case was considerably helped by the inadequacy of
the attack upon it. Sir Herbert Samuel for once badly misfired. Instead of concentrating on the foreign policy of the Government—its lack of drive and initiative, its half-hearted support of the collective system, the tactlessness and the maladroitness of the issue of the White Paper with its wounding references to Germany on the eve of a Peace Mission to Berlin— he spent the greater part of his ammunition on the actual increases in armament expenditure, and exposed himself to the obvious retort 'that the major part of the swollen expenditure, at any rate as far as the Navy and the Army is concerned, is to provide increased rates of -pay and modernized barracks and re-equipment, which no man in his senses could describe as involving provocative preparations for war or the abandonment of the League system. Sir Stafford Cripps also operated at a disadvantage. Challenged by Sir Austen as to whether the Labour Party would have countenanced offensive action against Japan and whether in the last resort he would admit the necessity of the use of armed force against an aggressor, he had to answer in the affirmative to both questions. Once the case for arma- ments for that kind of purpose is admitted, the Opposition can no longer pose as a peace-loving party against a war-mongering Government.
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