Editing Stanley Baldwin (section)

===Rearmament===
Baldwin's younger son A. Windham Baldwin, writing in 1955, argued that his father, Stanley, had planned a rearmament programme as early as 1934 but had to do so quietly to avoid antagonising the public, whose pacifism was revealed by the [[Peace Ballot]] of 1934–35 and endorsed by both the Labour and the Liberal oppositions. His thorough presentation of the case for rearmament in 1935, his son argued, defeated pacifism and secured a victory that allowed rearmament to move ahead.<ref>A. Windham Baldwin, ''My Father: The True Story'' (1955)</ref>

On 31 July 1934, the Cabinet approved a report that called for expansion of the [[Royal Air Force]] to the 1923 standard by creating 40 new squadrons over the next five years.<ref>Correlli Barnett, ''The Collapse of British Power'' (London: Methuen, 1972), p. 412.</ref> On 26 November 1934, six days after receiving the news that the German air force ([[Luftwaffe]]) would be as large as the RAF within one year, the Cabinet decided to speed up air rearmament from four years to two.<ref name="Barnett1">Barnett, p. 413.</ref> On 28 November 1934, Churchill moved an amendment to the vote of thanks for the King's Speech: "the strength of our national defences, and especially our air defences, is no longer adequate".<ref>R. A. C. Parker, ''Churchill and Appeasement'' (Macmillan, 2000), p. 45.</ref> His motion was known eight days before it was moved, and a special Cabinet meeting decided how to deal with the motion, which dominated two other Cabinet meetings.<ref>Parker, p. 45.</ref> Churchill said [[German rearmament|Nazi Germany was rearming]] and requested that the money spent on air armaments be doubled or tripled to deter an attack and that the ''Luftwaffe'' was nearing equality with the RAF.<ref>Martin Gilbert, ''Churchill. A Life'' (Pimlico, 2000), pp. 536–7.</ref> Baldwin responded by denying that the Luftwaffe was approaching equality and said it was "not 50 per cent" of the RAF. He added that by the end of 1935 the RAF would still have "a margin of nearly 50 per cent" in Europe.<ref>Gilbert, pp. 537–8.</ref> After Baldwin said that the government would ensure the RAF had parity with the future German air force, Churchill withdrew his amendment. In April 1935, the Air Secretary reported that although Britain's strength in the air would be ahead of Germany's for at least three years, air rearmament needed to be increased; so the Cabinet agreed to the creation of an extra 39 squadrons for home defence by 1937.<ref name="Barnett1"/> However, on 8 May 1935, the Cabinet heard that it was estimated that the RAF was inferior to the [[Luftwaffe]] by 370 aircraft and that to reach parity, the RAF must have 3,800 aircraft by April 1937, an extra 1,400 above the existing air programme. It was learnt that Nazi Germany was easily able to outbuild that revised programme as well.<ref>Barnett, p. 414.</ref> On 21 May 1935, the Cabinet agreed to expanding the home defence force of the RAF to 1,512 aircraft (840 bombers and 420 fighters).<ref name="Barnett1"/> (see also [[German rearmament#Nazi government era: 1933–1945|German rearmament]])
On 22 May 1935 Baldwin confessed in the House of Commons, "I was wrong in my estimate of the future. There I was completely wrong."<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 818.</ref>

On 25 February 1936, the Cabinet approved a report calling for expansion of the [[Royal Navy]] and the re-equipment of the [[British Army]] (though not its expansion), along with the creation of "shadow factories" built by public money and managed by industrial companies. The factories came into operation in 1937. In February 1937, the Chiefs of Staff reported that by May 1937, the Luftwaffe would have 800 bombers, compared to the RAF's 48.<ref>Barnett, pp. 414–15.</ref>

In the debate in the Commons on 12 November 1936, Churchill attacked the government on rearmament as being "decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. So we go on, preparing more months and years – precious, perhaps vital, to the greatness of Britain – for the locusts to eat". Baldwin replied:

<blockquote>I put before the whole House my own views with an appalling frankness. From 1933, I and my friends were all very worried about what was happening in Europe. You will remember at that time the Disarmament Conference was sitting in Geneva. You will remember at that time there was probably a stronger pacifist feeling running through the country than at any time since the War. I am speaking of 1933 and 1934. You will remember the election at Fulham in the autumn of 1933.... That was the feeling of the country in 1933. My position as a leader of a great party was not altogether a comfortable one. I asked myself what chance was there... within the next year or two of that feeling being so changed that the country would give a mandate for rearmament? Supposing I had gone to the country and said that Germany was rearming and we must rearm, does anybody think that this pacific democracy would have rallied to that cry at that moment! I cannot think of anything that would have made the loss of the election from my point of view more certain.... We got from the country – with a large majority – a mandate for doing a thing that no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible.<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 970, p. 972.</ref></blockquote>

Churchill wrote to a friend: "I have never heard such a squalid confession from a public man as Baldwin offered us yesterday".<ref>Gilbert, p. 567.</ref> In 1935 Baldwin wrote to [[J. C. C. Davidson]] in a letter now lost that said of Churchill: "If there is going to be a war – and no one can say that there is not – we must keep him fresh to be our war Prime Minister".<ref name="Middlemas3">Middlemas and Barnes, p. 872.</ref> [[Thomas Dugdale, 1st Baron Crathorne|Thomas Dugdale]] also claimed Baldwin said to him: "If we do have a war, Winston must be Prime Minister. If he is in [the Cabinet] now we shan't be able to engage in that war as a united nation".<ref name="Middlemas3"/> The General Secretary of the [[Trades Union Congress]], [[Walter Citrine]], recalled a conversation he had had with Baldwin on 5 April 1943: "Baldwin thought his [Churchill's] political recovery was marvellous. He, personally, had always thought that if war came Winston would be the right man for the job".<ref>[[Walter Citrine, 1st Baron Citrin|Lord Citrine]], ''Men and Work. An Autobiography'' (London: Hutchinson, 1964), p. 355.</ref>

The [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] strongly opposed the rearmament programme. [[Clement Attlee]] said on 21 December 1933: "For our part, we are unalterably opposed to anything in the nature of rearmament".<ref name="Barnett2">Barnett, p. 422.</ref> On 8 March 1934, Attlee said, after Baldwin defended the Air Estimates, "we on our side are out for total disarmament".<ref name="Middlemas2"/> On 30 July 1934, Labour moved a motion of censure against the government because of its planned expansion of the RAF. Attlee spoke for it: "We deny the need for increased air arms...and we reject altogether the claim of parity".<ref name="Barnett2"/> [[Stafford Cripps]] also said on that occasion that it was fallacy that Britain could achieve security through increasing air armaments.<ref name="Barnett2"/> On 22 May 1935, the day after Hitler had made a Reichstag speech<ref>[https://krupp.library.vanderbilt.edu/sites/default/files/D3-2288-PS.pdf full text] (pdf). [https://archive.org/details/RedeDesFhrersUndReichskanzlersAdolfHitlerVorDemReichstagAm21.Mai full text] (German).</ref> claiming that German rearmament offered no threat to peace, Attlee asserted that Hitler's speech gave "a chance to call a halt in the armaments race".<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 819.</ref> Attlee also denounced the Defence White Paper of 1937: "I do not believe the Government are going to get any safety through these armaments".<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 1030.</ref>