ISSUES AT STAKE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 51, 24 November 1941, Page 8

ISSUES AT STAKE

Unremitting Effort By All Required FUTURE OF MANKIND Address By Mr. Duff Cooper The issues at stake in the present war were referred to by Mr. A. Duff Cooper, British Minister to the Far East, in an address last night. He said they should not f let the certainty of victory blind their eyes to the necessity for unremitting effort by all sections of the people. If by their efforts they were able to bring a swift and triumphant end to their tribulations they would earn the gratification not only of the civilized world but of posterity as well. It was seldom, said Mr. Duff Cooper, that the truth fell from that arch enemy of the human race, Adolph Hitler, but when he said not long ago that the future of Germany for 1000 years depended on the result of the present war he was saying something that .was at least partly true. Much more, indeed ,than the future of Germany depended on this war—the future of mankind.

“There have been wars in the past, but none like this one,” said Mr. Duff Cooper. “Other wars have been fought for certain definite objectives, such as for commercial or economic advantages or for territory, and victory or defeat meant only the transfer of something from one nation to another, but this war means more than that. , The last war was a very terrible one, and a great deal was at stake. If we had been completely defeated, which was never likely, it might have meant the destruction of the Empire. Germany would at any time have accepted a peace that would have allowed the survival of part of the Empire, but Germany would never have allowed us to recover our strength as we so foolishly allowed her to do between the two wars. Something greater than the existence of the Empire is at stake today.” A Hideous Tiling.

A comparison between the old and present-day Germany was made by Mr. Duff Cooper. The former German empire, he said, was dominated by militarists. That was an evil thing, and they did well to destroy it, but in the interests of historical accuracy and justice let them be fair to it and compare it with the far more hideous thing that had taken its place. It was a despotic tyranny. The vain and arrogant man who then sat on the throne had powers that were limited, there was a free Press, a Parliament elected by the people and to a certain extent free speech, and hardly any attempt was made to interfere with religion. Men could worship as they pleased, and above all the Germany of that day was at any rate predominantly Christian. The Germans had always been a cruel race. Books written by German authors revealed this revolting nature of German character, but cruelty had not been adopted deliberately as an instrument of policy. Of all the things that made the Nazi regime stink for ever in the nostrils of all decent people the concentration camp was the vilest. It was an attempt by a gang of bloodstained criminals to impose by terror and torture their will on the world. Triumph of Evil.

“It would have been!terrible to have lost the last war and to see the German flag flying over our public buildings, and German soldiers marching through the streets,” Mr. Duff Cooper continued, “but it would not have been the end of all things and the frustration of human hope. Though I cannot say I should have felt happy in such a world, I should have felt there was some hope for the future generations. How much worse and how much _ more terrible would be the prospect if the Nazi tyranny were to triumph. It would not be the tyranny of one race, but the triumph of the principle of evil itself.” They should never forget the principle on which the Nazi philosophy was based, said Mr. Duff Cooper. It was not a philosophy but an ugly dream of a perverted imagination. The first He that had been driven into the silly little heads of idiotic little Nazis was that the German people wera superior to all others on earth, and that whatever was good in humanity was German, and that whatever was bad was of foreign origin. The Germans were told they had to be a nation of masters and all others a nation of slaves. Had that been said a few years ago one would have dismissed it as the nightmare of a madman and something too ghastly to happen in a civilized country in the twentieth century. The Jews and Poland. The treatment by Germans of the Jews and the Poles was referred to by Mr. Duff Cooper. He said the reason for Germany’s brutal treatment of the Poles was that Germany was afraid of them. Poland had emerged triumphant from the last war, and its population had increased more rapidly thau that of any other country in Europe. If Germany hated the Poles, how much greater must be its hatred of the British. The Poles were a danger to Germany, but Britain was death to Germany. They could rest assured that the treatment of the British would be immeasurably worse than what the Poles had to suffer. They need not speculate as to what would happen if they were defeated, for they were not going to be defeated, but they should not let the certainty of victory blind their eyes to the necessity for unremitting effort. Referring to London, he said that city was not looking very beautiful at present, but she was looking very glorious. She bore some gaping wounds, but her teeth were clenched. Never in London’s long history had her citizens loved her as they did today.