BRITAIN'S PLACE IN EUROPE

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22268, 6 December 1937, Page 8

BRITAIN'S PLACE IN EUROPE

♦ Rearmament Welcomed On All Sides DICTATORS REGARDED AS A THREAT TO PEACE The sound basis of the present period of prosperity in England and the confidence of the country in its leadership and the control of its foreign policy were emphasised by Mr P. A. Godfrey Phillips, a director of the English tobacco firm of Godfrey Phillips, Ltd., and of the Abdulla Company, who is visiting Christchurch during a holiday and business tour of the Dominion. When Mr Phillips left England in April, the country appeared prosperous, he said. Though rearmament was a contributory cause, he thought that there was a more stable basis for the general prosperity. “Unlike other European countries, we have been living well within our means, and in past years have not been spending the same amount as other countries on rearmament,” he said. “Unfortunately, it was necessary that we should rearm, and there was virtually no opposition to the Government’s policy. Even the Russian papers welcomed it. I do not think that anyone regrets it, except those countries which are inclined to be aggressive. To-day Britain is a good deal stronger than most people rcslisc/’ Though he was not in England at the time of the Cabinet reshuffle, caused by the retirement of Earl Baldwin, Mr Phillips thought that the country had faith in the leadership of the new Prime Minister (Mr Neville Chamberlain), who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had been more responsible than any other single man for the success of the National Government.

Foreign Policy “An engrossing topic in England to-day is foreign policy,” continued Mr Phillips, “and I think we have a genius as Foreign Secretary, provided he is allowed to handle his idb without interference. I should say that Mr Eden has a larger personal following in England than any other statesman. This impression! have gained after addressing Political meetings in many parts of the country.” . . , The possibility of isolation as a policy was purely academic, for it was no longer practicable, Mr Phulips said. Air Eden rather subscribed to the French view that oeace was one and indivisible, and that the world was so shrunk that a breach of the peace anywhere was a danger to the peace everywhere. Mr Eden still believed in collective security as the only real solution, but neither he nor the other members of the Government were willing to gamble the future of the Empire on it; in other words, Britain must be able to defend herself, while trying to organise world security on a collective basis. Alarms which had come to nothing had lulled many into a false sense of safety, but so long as there were dictators faced with the alternative of losing their grip on their public or of uniting the people behind them in a war, there could never be a feeling of complete security, added Mr Phillips. “There is always a danger that dictators will do what Samson did in the temple; when they see themselves doomed they may pull down the pillars of the world with them,” he said. “It is difficult for people in a free country like New Zealand tc realise how easy it is to carry the public with you when you have complete control of the press and radio,” said Mr Phillips. “The power of the press can be abused, but censorship of the press can much more easily be abused. The press throughout the Empire has, on the whole, an extraordinarily high sense of its duty to the public. The New Zealand newspapers I have seen display a very high standard, and much less insularity than the papers of most European countries.”