§ 47. Mr. MANDERasked the Prime Minister if he has any further statement to make with regard to the figures for disarmament given in his speech in the House on 29th June, 1931?
§ The PRIME MINISTERI have given this matter further consideration and though the actual figures of expenditure which I gave were of course accurate,, I feel that in the case of Naval expenditure the comparison which I then made of the reductions of expenditure in this and other countries as between pre-war and post-war years does not give a reliable picture of the situation. I was careful to explain the difficulty, owing to various causes, of presenting reliable figures of comparison. It is, however, certain that the ratio of British armaments to-day to British armaments in 1914 is less than the corresponding ratio for any other Great Power, except of course Germany.