REMOVE FRICTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 127, 1 June 1938, Page 7

REMOVE FRICTION.

PACT WITH ITALY. Mr. Chamberlain's Action Endorsed. WAR OUTLOOK REFUTED. British Official Wireless. RUGBY, May 31. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon, speaking at a National Government demonstration, said that as a result of Mr. Chamberlain's letter to Signor Mussolini in July, there was opened a new opportunity for reducing the most dangerous state of tension between Italy and Britain. After months of patient negotiation |an agreement had been reached which removed many causes of friction and was recognised all over the world to be a contribution toward peace, said Sir John. This agreement did not involve any approval of Italy's invasion of Abyssinia, and it no more implied that Mr. 1 Chamberlain had any sympathy with Fascism than it implied that Signor j Mussolini had any sympathy with democracy. The way to peace was not to be found by ranging the nations of the world into opposing teams determined to resist one another to the death. It was to be found by seeking out the causes of the quarrel or misunderstanding and trying to remove them, and that was the course which Mr. Chamberlain had been taking. Sir John added that Mr. Chamberlain had showed profound wisdom, and that his statement should be accepted by the nation irrespective of party. He sometimes heard reproaches for the course which the Government followed in the Far East in 1932, Sir John continued. The course then adopted was taken throughout in co-operation with the League as a whole—so much so that Japan had resigned frorii the League jin resentment. ' I But if he had anything to do with saving his country at that time, when | the Singapore dock was not finished and when Britain might have had to face single-handed the responsibility for the disaster of war, he was well content to bear these reproaches. Sir John repudiated altogether the outlook which said war was inevitable, that certain countries were bound to be Britain's enemies, and that all Britain had to do was try to keep them as powerless and weak as she could.

He would rather hold to the view that if they did their utmost to remove causes that might lead to war and tried to meet in a fair manner difficulties that arose, from whatever quarter they came, war was not inevitable and the influence of Britain should be thrown on the side of peace.