§ 2.35 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT STANSGATEMy Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can give any information as to the reported production and trials in Madrid of the D.O. 25, manufactured under the direction of the Aero-Union, which includes firms as well known in this country as Dornier, Junkers, Focke-Wolf, Messerschmidt and Heinkel; and whether production of these machines and their further development will in any way be controlled or checked after the ratification of the Paris Agreement.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING)My Lords, I understand that the prototype of this aircraft, which was designed by Dornier's of Madrid, and built by Construcciones Aeronauticas, of Seville, made its first flight on July 25 this year. The aircraft is reported to be a high-wing all-metal light liaison monoplane, with a 150 h.p. piston engine and a designed maximum speed of about 110 m.p.h. It was built to a specification put out by the Spanish Air Ministry. The answer to the second part of the noble Lord's Question is that the production and development of aircraft in Spain cannot be controlled either now or after the entry into force of the Paris Agreements, to which Spain is not a party.
§ VISCOUNT STANSGATEMy Lords, would the noble Marquess bear in mind what happened between the years 1923 and 1926, when the then German Government (not the Hitler Government), evaded the terms which controlled German rearmament by setting up poison gas factories and aircraft factories in 562 Russia, when General von Seeckt was head of the Armed Forces and Brockdorf Rantzau was Ambassador at Moscow? Has the noble Marquess looked into that parallel?
§ VISCOUNT STANSGATEMy Lords, it is useless for the noble Marquess to bear anything in mind unless he does something. He will forgive my speaking with some feeling, but the provisions of the Versailles Treaty, which we thought were complete, were evaded in this way. Now we find that six of the best-known manufacturers of military aircraft have formed what is called the Aero-Union to produce types of the innocent kind which the noble Marquess has described. Does the noble Marquess think it is just sufficient to "bear it in mind"?
THE MARQUESS OF READINGMy Lords, I am doing precisely what the noble Viscount has asked me to do. He asked me to bear it in mind and I said that I would bear it in mind; and I will.
§ VISCOUNT STANSGATEMy Lords, that is a pretty bit of verbal by-play, but it does not obscure the fact that there is a loophole in this control of German rearmament which deserves consideration by those who desire to keep Germany in her proper place in the military armament of Europe.
THE MARQUESS OF READINGMy Lords, if a factory is set up by nationals of any country in another country, nobody can stop them doing that, or stop them manufacturing things in that country, except the Government in the country in which they have set up. The noble Viscount has produced what he says is a parallel case, and I have said that I will bear it in mind. I really do not know what more I can do in order to satisfy him.
§ VISCOUNT STANSGATEExcept to get the facts right. Why was it, for example, that when the Dornier 25 was exhibited in Madrid, Generals and the heads of the Spanish Air Staff went to see it? Does that mean that the whole control of German rearmament has been by-passed in this way, as it was thirty years ago?
THE MARQUESS OF READINGMy Lords, I should have thought that that was an extremely exaggerated view to take of the occasion to which the noble Viscount referred.