The Press WEDNESDAY, JULY 24, 1940. Lord Halifax’s Speech

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23080, 24 July 1940, Page 8

The Press WEDNESDAY, JULY 24, 1940. Lord Halifax’s Speech

Herr Hitler’s Reichstag speech, in which he spoke unexpectedly of a long-standing desire to establish friendly relations with Great Britain and protested that there was no need for the war to continue, has been followed by the most Vigorous “ peace • offensive ” yet staged by the German propaganda organisation. Indeed, the intensity of the campaign, and the absence of the usual threats and gibes against Great Britain, have aroused the suspicion that its primary ( purpose is not to put Great Britain off her iguard or to sap British morale but to find a &way of stopping the war before chaos, famine, land disease cancel any benefits Germany may fjhave secured fay the victories of her armies. !Herr Hitler’s speech was in itself so devoid of content, so unsteadily poised between menaces and plaintive appeals, that it required no other answer than that which was given contemptuously in advance by Mr a slave "Europe would be a very poor foundation for "a free world.” But the extraordinary efforts of the German propaganda organisation to persuade the world that a "reasonable peace” is possible if only the British people will be less obstinate have made it desirable that some member of the British Government should restate Great Britain’s reasons for continuing the struggle. Lord Halifax has done so quietly, earnestly and vigorously. No one in Great Britain, he says, wants the war to, go on “ a "day longer than is necessary”; but Herr Hitler’s speech, which appeals only to fear and contains no reference to the future of the nations now submerged beneath the tide of German conquest, offers no basis for an attempt to negotiate peace. For that reason, says Lord TTalifav the British peoples will go on fighting " till freedom for ourselves and others is “ secure.” It is neither unpractical nor altruistic to insist that in the present struggle Great Britain is fighting not merely for her own freedom but for the freedom of Europe, Great Britain could not, even if she were willing, conclude a peace which would leave her secure in the enjoyment of her democratic way of life and. would at the same time abandon the European continent to the rule of the National Socialist despotism, A free Great Britain and ft Europe dominated by the armed might of a single great Power were not compatibles at the time of the Napoleonic conquests, when the English Channel was in effect an ocean; even less are they compatibles to-day, when the English Channel has shrunk to.the dimensions of a ditch. The struggle for a free Europe is inseparable from the struggle for a free Great Britain and for a free British Commonwealth. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that when Lord Halifax pledges Great Britain to fight for a free Europe he does not pledge her to, fight for the re-establishment of the European system created by the Treaty of Versailles. As he himself has indicated in previous speeches, there can be; no going back to a Europe in which efforts to organise a permanent peace are thwarted by the concept of independent and irresponsible national sovereignty, in which all efforts to promote, prosperity and economic stability are defeated by a multitude oL irrational tariff systems. But if the new Europer cannot be built on the Versailles formula, still Jess can it be built ’ under the shadbw of a dictatorship which denies to men their fundamental liberties. Until the German Government recognises that fact in deeds as well as words; until it ceases to advance its record of successful crimes as a reason' for peace, the struggle will go on.