WORLD PROBLEMS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 245, 29 July 1936, Page 5

WORLD PROBLEMS

THE POLICY OF BRITAIN.

ARMAMENTS AND MANDATES.

TREND OF DEMOCRACIES,

(United Pres 9 Association —Copyright.) LONDON, July 27.

A long and important speech was made by the Foreign Minister (Mr It. A. Eden) in opening a debate in the House of Commons.

Regarding plans for a new Locarno, he hoped that the invitations addressed to Germany and Italy would receive a favourable answer. Mr Eden emphasised the great amount of preparatory work which had to be done through diplomatic channels before a five-Power meeting could usefully take place, but though many obstacles yet remained to be surmounted, they had reached the stage when a genuine spirit of collaboration existed among all concerned. Toward the close of his speech, Mr Eden dealt in rapid succession with several subjects, including Danzig, mandates, raw materials, disarmament, and the reform of the League. On the last point ho declined to define the Government’s attitude while consultations were still going on. Transfer of Mandates. Speaking of the transference of mandated territories, Mr Eden declared that any question of transfer would inevitably raise grave difficulties, moral, political and legal, for which his Majesty's Government must frankly say that it had been unable to find any solution. His Majesty’s Government therefore hoped that with so many other international questions still unsolved there would in no quarter be a desire at this time to introduce a further cause of differences between the nations.

Air Eden emphasised the distinction between the question of transfer and the question of whether arrangements were necessary or desirable for giving all countries freer access to raw materials produced in the mandated territories or in the colonies. The Government was fully prepared to discuss the latter question at some international conference under the League of Nations, and its approach might well bo made, in its view, at the forthcoming Assembly meeting. Limitation of Armaments. Twitting the Opposition with inconsistencies in its attitude to the Government’s rearmament programme, Air Eden said that the armaments for which they were asking would never be used for a purpose inconsistent with the League Covenant or the Pact of Paris. They might, i if the occasion arose, be used in self-defence; they might we used in coming to the help of a victim of aggression, but they would not be used in a war of aggression. The Alinister added that it would clearly remain the duty of tho Government to seize any opportunity for the limitation of armaments. It was possible that an opportunity might come sooner than some people thought, for the pressure on economies of tho nations was extremely severe, and that might come to be appreciated, even in many quarters where it would be ridiculed at present. They lived in a Europe, concluded Mr Eden, which was suffering from almost a total eclipse of freedom-loving nations —a Europe where there was a tendency for extremes to rules, extremes with which no section in that House could feel sympathy. Their liberties, which they meant to maintain, carried with them responsibilities. Democracies must show unity if they were to survive and to hand on to later generations the liberties of which they were proud.—British Official "Wireless.

HOLIDAYS CANCELLED.

MINISTERS REMAIN IN ENGLAND (United Press Association —Copyright") LONDON, July 28. Tlve Prime Minister (Mr Stanley Baldwin) has cancelled lis annual holiday at Aix-les-Bains as lie desires to be near London to deal with any international developments, particularly those arising from the proposed Locarno Conference. Several other Cabinet Ministers have cancelled holidays abroad.

“DARK, TORTUOUS AND UNHAPPY.” AUSTRALIAN MINISTER’S IMPRESSIONS. PERTH, July 28. Speaking at a civic reception in his honour, Mr R. G. Menzies (Federal Attorney-General), who has just returned from London, described tho world as dark, tortuous, and unhappy. England, he said, was engaged in the most intensive rearmament campaign in her history, tantamount to preparation for war. “The threat to world peace has not come from democracies,” he said, “but rather from countries where democracy has died. Events in 1936 will have to bo watched with infinite care to see whether France is to remain democratic.”

Australia, he added, would have to do some furious thinking about the state of Europe; if she were going to make her contribution towards what he considered was the sanity of the world and the safety of the whole western civilisation and everything it represented.