"OUR VISION."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 172, 22 July 1940, Page 8

"OUR VISION."

SOCIETY OF NATIONS. World Free Of Spectre Of Nazi Domination. AVOID GREATER MISERIES. Hrilish Official Wireless. (Received 2 p.m.) RUGBY, July 21. Continuing his broadcast, General Sun ts turned to what he described as "the kind of peace wo envisage and hope to establish at the end of this titanic struggle."' "Hy way of preface," he declared, "our •v i.-~i• >11 still is freedom — the liberation of Europe from the deadly Nazi thrall and its organisation in a new, creative freedom." Before defining it more closely he -objected to a searching analysis the so-called "new order" which Hitler would proclaim as his objective and might even begin seeking to establish, for lie was to-day in a very strong position in Kurope.

"He is master of most of Europe," said General Smuts, "and will probably succeed in putting the rest of it also in his power or in his pocket. This is r,c. longer the Kaiser's dream of Mittel Kuropa; it is a whole continent, with Russia reduced to a subservient. acquiescent role. This continent he will mould to his will."

Hitler would pose as the regenerator of the old, effete European order, with its chequerboa id of sovereign states. To tliis lie would claim to tiring union and. being master, could afford to restore some semlilance of freedom to lit-* victims, held together in the bonds of the Nazi order. Internal Tariff Walls.

Internal tariff walls and economic barriers would disappear and a large closed Continental market would be established, with Germany as its centre and as the regulator on economic lines which had already become manifest during the Nazi regime. It would lie a new, mechanised Europe, in which units would be held together by central controls of Nazi ideology and Nazi economics, with the mailed fist in the background.

"Real freedom, personal or national, will have perished. The principles of freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion and freedom of the Press, which have been the guiding ideals of the West, will have been effectively suppressed. The name of the Monroe Doctrine for this Europe will be invoked, but it will be a mere mockery and travesty of that Monroe Doctrine of America, which is a bulwark of free, national, self-development for a whole continent."

Delusive attractions of this plan would, no i oubt, appeal to a certain order of minds everywhere. It would even lie not surprising if a tired, war-side Europe, racked with suffering and appalled by the spectre of coming starvation, might for a time see in it some hope of escape from greater miseries.

"But it will l>e a negation of what the human • spirit, the free human soul, has stood for through long ages and looked forward to as its inspiring ideal," he said. "A vision which lias guided our long, slow advance will have perished in utter darkness and defeat."

Against tin's spectre of a Nazi-domin-ated Europe, Britain and her Allies opposed the vision of a truly free Europe—free for the individual and for the nation. They would have Europe continue on the historic trail of human progress, b"t they had.also learned that, for a society of nations, as well as for a society of men, discipline and organisation must go hand in hand with freedom.

General Smuts concluded: "We there* fore aim at a society of nations which will possess a central organisation equipped with necessary authority and powers."