Vickers Meeting

Last week Vickers, Ltd., one of the greatest armament firms in the world, held its annual meeting in London. General the Hon. Sir Herbert Alexander Lawrence, chairman of the board, cleared his throat, sipped a glass of water, and read his report.

There had been, he was glad to say, "a very satisfactory increase in orders for land armaments, in particular light tanks and anti-aircraft equipment." He had a novelty to announce. The Whitehead Torpedo Co., a Vickers subsidiary, had just produced a new torpedo specially designed for firing from airplanes, and the Air Ministry was charmed with it. Striking back at uncomfortable exposes of the international armament makers. Sir Herbert cried:

"The inflated profits of private armament firms exist only in the imaginations of ill-advised critics. The Vickers group has no part in any international armaments ring. On the contrary there is the keenest competition to secure orders from any country which is strengthening its defenses and has not the necessary manufacturing resources available. . . . Munitions manufacturers should rather be considered as rendering a patriotic service so long as our products are necessary for the defense of the Empire."

All this was very comforting for the tycoons and estate managers who sat in the front rows, but in the back rows were a number of people who had bought two or three shares apiece of Vickers stock for the sole purpose of attending this meeting. One of them, Miss Eleanor Rathbone, Independent M. P., rose to ask a few questions. Was it not true that despite the prohibitions of the Versailles Treaty full-page advertisements of Vickers tanks were published in Berlin papers? Would the chairman swear on his honor that no Vickers munitions were being secretly shipped to Germany and Austria, possibly to be used against British troops?

Chairman Sir Herbert blushed very red, and explained that the tank advertisements in the Berlin papers were really intended for South America where those papers had large circulation.

"Unfortunately," said he, "I cannot give definite assurance that none of our products is reaching Germany or Austria, but to our critics I can say this. Nothing is done without the complete sanction and approval of the British Government."

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