CHANGING WORLD

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 120, 24 May 1938, Page 7

CHANGING WORLD

BRITAIN'S ATTITUDE.

Need For Spirit of Courage And Conviction.

STRENGTH TO MEET PEOBLEMS.

British Official Wireless.

(Received 1 p.m.) RUGBY, May 23. Mr. R. A. Butler, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, speaking at the! annual Imperial Press Conference, said: "We must acknowledge that the efforts made during the past 20 years to establish an international peace system have not achieved as much as we hoped.

"Just as we went to the limit of our power seeking idealism, so now shall we go to the limit of our capacity in reestablishing our strength and assuring our future position to meet problems which lie before us." Continuing, he said: "We must face the changing world with courage and conviction borne of our own convinced belief in our own system of self-govern-ment and our own morality. The spirit and interests of our Empire should guide us. "Cut from your vocabularies such expressions as 'the inevitability of war' and show that we are trained to change and movement as to the sea, and that this training has taught us, as it will teach others, the way to achieve change. "Any action taken recently has been designed to widen the area of agreement and lessen the area of conflict. We shall be successful if we face the future in the spirit of courage and strength. Let us also understand that we cannot control, at our intimate responsibility, every situation which may

arise. "We have not taken siilt* with Spain, since we do not consider this to be our quarrel, and we cannot make ourselves responsible for every change—if change there be—as the new world unfolds itself, but by not becoming involved in every conflict of extremes our influence will be all the greater on any critical occasion we feel called upon to exert it."