PEACE OFFENSIVE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 300, 2 October 1939, Page 6

PEACE OFFENSIVE

LITTLE SURPRISE IN BRITAIN. WAR AIMS REAFFIRMED. COMMENT IN NEWSPAPERS. 'United Press Association— > LONDON, September 30. The dominant note of British press comment on the latest Nazi-Soviet move continues to be insistence on its inevitability, and that it was expected m view of the manoeuvres which preceded it. v “The Times” says of the agreement : “Tts terms contain a faint element of surprise in the degree of insolence and iniquity they achieve, but no other. At the same time the potential signifiancc of the developments culminating in what “The Times” calls “the noeturnal bargainings and banquetings” of M. Stalin and Herr von Ribbentrop is not minimised. The “Daily Telegraph.” the “Manchester Guardian” and the “ Daily Herald” all give serious consideration to the implications of the agreement. In all leading articles attention is also devoted to the parts of the joint SovietGerman declaration which foreshadow what is generally referred to in the press as “the peace offensive.” The suggestion made in the declaration “that the liquidation of the present war between Germany, on the one hand, and Britain on the other, is in the interests of all nations,” hacked by the veiled threat of “further consultations,” is regarded as one more demonstration of the fact that to the present rulers of Germany peace means, and has always meant, peace under duress. Peace by agreement and maintained by goodwill is beyond their comprehension. Peace dictated and imposed by intimidation or force is the peace they understand and seek. ■ “The Times” interprets the attitude of the declaration on the ending of the war thus: “If Britain and France fail to accept this view—that is, to approve, ratify, and guarantee the momentary profits of calculated crime—it will be proved that they bear the responsibility for the continuation of the war.” The feeling of this and other newspapers is that this is. a responsibility which the Allies might be glad to incur, being free, as all the world knows, of any responsibility for the commencement of the war. “Yielding to Threat.” The “Manchester Guardian,” for example, considers that if the Allies were to slioav any signs of yielding to

the new threat, “we should suffer a moral catastrophe.” “The Times” says: “Whatever the ‘peaco terms’ might prove to be, Nazism has left not the smallest ground or foothold for negotiations. It has perjured away every possibility of understanding upon any conditions whatever.” The “Daily Herald” writes: “What it is essential we should do is to make clear to the world the moral principles for which we fight. The reply we give the Russian-German peace offer when it comes must be not hasty reply or one on which our position can bo misjudged. We went into this war on behalf of certain principles whicli we believe to be vital to the continuance of civilised relationships among nations. We abide by these principles'. We may hope that in our endeavour to secure them we shall receive the support of civilised opinion throughout the world. And in the long run that support will be decisive. The “Yorkshire Post” tfiinks that nothing could bo more cynically imprudent than the statement in the new Moscow pact that Germany and Russia have created a sure basis for durable peace in Eastern Europe. It says that this durable basis is “in plain language the complete dismemberment of Poland by two predatory Powers.” Hitler’s Motives. The “Daily Mail” asks: Why does Herr Hitler'want peace? It answers: “Be sura that he who plunged_ the world into war for his own ambition is not moved now by any thought of mercy for mankind. By his acts we know him and his motives. He wants peace because he thinks that if he could get it now he would appear to the world victorious and to have overawed Britain and France by his own threat of force enough to sweep him on to world domination. He wants it still more because he has not yet encountered what hei dreads—the real strength of Britain and France. Even at this hour there is already for him the writing on the Avail. He sees the seas swept clear of German ships. He sees the failure of the German submarine campaign. At his Avestern gate, and in the air above him, mightily gathering Avith sure and steady purpose, come his implacable foes.” While the motives of the Nazis are held to be obvious, the comment shows loss certainty' in the case of M. Stalin. Doubts on this and on the general political portents of co-onera-tion between the Swastika and the Red Flag are summed up by the “Daily Telegraph” in a sentence: “Where there is no moral or political principle at stake, and the only motive is self-interest, the possibilities are endless and speculation is vain.” A number of writers, however, draw attention to the fact that in the new demarcation-lino, frontier ? which' *in general folloAA’s the “Curzon line, the Soviet has with minor exceptions adhered to what may be regarded as an ethnographical frontier. As “The Times” puts it, “Russia takes over in the main the White Russians and Ukrainians. Germany acquires new territory with a population indubitably Polish.”