Mr. Alexander in the debate on the supplementary estimates for
naval expenditure returned to the charge that is now made by every Front Bench Labour speaker in defence debates that the armament expenditure bears no relation to the Government's professed belief in the system of collective security. What the Labour Party demands is, in Mr. Alexander's words, that "the Government will come frankly to the House and say what are the collective contributions being made to collective security by other Powers, and what they expect us to put into the collective pool. It is, of course, a very convenient way of enabling Labour candidates to retain the pacifist vote by saying that the Party has voted against every defence estimate and at the same time insisting to the realists among their supporters that they are working for a more efficient system of collective security. At the same time it is a case that does need a detailed and dispassionate reply. Mr. Kenneth Lindsay, who answered for the Government on this occasion, made no attempt to deal with this particular argument of Mr. Alexander though he made a spirited reply to several far less important points that had beta raised in the debate.
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