ABSTRACT

After Locarno, although he made no great case for disarmament, he fully supported Cecil’s summary of the need for it, made at a CID meeting during the 1926 Imperial Conference. Cecil argued that Britain had treaty commitments on disarmament, that arms competition leads to war, and that expenditure on arms was bad for the economy by burdening industry with taxes. He also pointed out that Britain had an interest in maintaining the territorial status quo through seeing that interests such as Egypt and Tangier remained in the field of diplomacy, since it would be difficult to go to war over them.10 Chamberlain completely endorsed Cecil’s statements, adding that Britain should counsel caution on disarmament only in private - he did not want blame attached to Britain over delays in negotiations. He also believed the Soviet Union,

Chamberlain thus supported Cecil’s arguments for disarmament, but doubted their immediate practicality. As we shall see, doubts over

Soviet motives continued to influence Chamberlain’s disarmament policy: when they proposed schemes of reduction, he was highly sceptical.