GREAT BRITAIN: Good News

In a week which was trying to many British businessmen (see col. 3), the nation as a whole was cheered to have its faith in the British Navy renewed by Sir Samuel (“Flying Sam”) Hoare, who, as First Lord of the British Admiralty, has been increasingly often mentioned as one of two or three statesmen with a real chance of becoming Prime Minister. Sir Samuel would certainly know, reasons the average Englishman, whether there is any validity in the rumors that Air Power has now outmoded Sea Power. This onetime Air Minister was Foreign Secretary when Benito Mussolini faced down British ships in the Mediterranean (TIME, Sept. 30, 1935), knows diplomacy, the air, the sea.

“I hope no future Foreign Secretary will ever be put in the position in which I found myself,” said the First Lord last week at Edinburgh. “That state of affairs must never occur again!”To remedy it the Admiralty will build more warships, Sir Samuel said, and went on to announce momentously that the Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defense, appointed to probe the “bombers v. battle ships” controversy, has now unanimously recommended against the substitution of fighting aircraft for British capital ships. “When the country hears more of the question,” summed up Sir Samuel, “there will be no two opinions among impartial people!”

More good news for Britons came in a speech to the 1912 Club by Sir Henry Page-Croft: “There has been much windy talk that if another war takes place it will ‘end civilization.’ This of course is sheer nonsense. Even if London were subjected to a pitiless hail of bombs and gas, it is childish to imagine that such frightfulness would be the end of England, much less the end of the British Empire.”