The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News,The Echo and The Sun. THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 1944. REPUBLICANS' FOREIGN POLICY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 152, 29 June 1944, Page 4

The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 1944. REPUBLICANS' FOREIGN POLICY

IX7"HAT the American people think on the subject of their country's post-war relations, and how they give political expression to their thinking, are matters on which Governments and peoples all round the world are interested. The United States is likely to emerge from the war a nation far mere powerful than any other, and the question of how it will use its power affects every other State, both on the Allied and on the Axis side. In particular, the Governments and peoples of other countries try to form opinions as to the willingness of the United States to participate in international organisations after the war, and then as to the probable degree and manner of its participation. The task of forming durable opinion on this question is perennially difficult, not only because in the United States there is a multitude of counsellors, but because the feeling of the American people changes and fluctuates under the influence of foreign and domestic developments. But there are two groups of Americans who have to study with especial care the opinion and feeling of their fellow citizens on this and other subjects. They are the delegates to the Republican and the Democratic political conventions. On the judgments they form cf the political wants of the people, on the platforms they draw up for the people's approval, depend their prospects of winning votes in November. If they are uncertain of the people's feeling on any subject, including foreign policy, they will be careful not to commit themselves too far, and they will take refuge in generalisations, usually vague, and sometimes deliberately ambiguous. The Republican party convention has adopted a foreign policy plank which can mean many things to many people. The aim of the United States after the war, it declares, should be to make "and keep" the Axis Powers impotent to renew their tyranny and attack. As it is nowhere suggested that the United States alone could, or wishes to, enforce the police settlement, some form of international organisation is implied here. What form shall it be? It should not be in the form of "a world State," but in an "organisation for co-operation among the sovereign nations to prevent military aggression and to attain permanent peace with organised justice in a free world." The League of Nations was that kind of organisation, and it failed, because "co-operation among the sovereign nations" which composed it was defective, so defective that it was inadequate to prevent the visible preparation of Germany for another war. But to those who point this out the Republican leaders will be able to say that the party favours the "responsible participation" of the United States in post-war organisation, the lack of which after the last war fatally weakened the League. This phrase "responsible participation" is the most important sign in the declaration of the change which has come over American thinking in relation to world affairs. If there had been no change, the phrase would not have been included in a declaration which, on foreign affairs, is as noncommittal as it could have been made. The nature of this declaration will increase the likelihood of foreign policy becoming a major issue in the campaign. It suggests that those who thought they discerned increasing agreement between the parties on peace purposes have been too optimistic. Either that, or the Republican party is lagging considerably behind public opinion. Earlier this year one of the most reliable of the public opinion polls indicated that a very large majority of Americans thought that an international organisation should prevent any member from starting a war, should decide, in a dispute, which country was right, and should decide what military strength each member nation could have. There is a great contrast between these opinions, and the kind of thinking they imply, and the raluctant generalisations to which the Republican party has subscribed. In the coming months, perhaps, we shall learn which represents the more accurately the spirit and determination of the American people.