AVOIDING TENSION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 35, 10 August 1939, Page 13

AVOIDING TENSION

EUROPEAN SITUATION

STATESMEN'S TASK MADE DIFFICULT

DISTORTED REPORTS

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, August 8.

In the final debates on foreign affairs in both Houses of Parliament before the recess, the Prime Minister, Mr. Chamberlain, and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, made it clear that the British Government could not regard the immediate situation either in Europe or the Far East without anxiety. Observers in London agree that the efforts made since March to build up the anti-aggression front have had considerable effect in discouraging an adventure, therefore serving the sole purpose for which, as British statesmen have insisted all along, they were Undertaken, namely, the restoration of confidence. Diplomatic circles here feel that rej sponsible leaders in all countries reailise the importance of preventing a growth of tension. Lord Halifax drew attention, however, to a source of danger to peace which still cannot be i ignored when he told the House of Lords: "The task of statesmen of today is made dpubly difficult by those official propagandists and unofficial journalists and writers who deliberately invent, | exaggerate, or distort events and their 1 implications." I EFFECTS OF HATE AND FEAR. I Mr. Chamberlain also referred again to a poisoning of the wells of international understanding by hate and fear, manufactured by Press distortion and vilification. There are a number of questions oiitstanding in Europe which, as the events in Danzig over the weekend again illustrated, can be dangerous to peace or can be rendered relatively harmless, according to whether they are magnified into trials of strength or kept in perspective and handled with tact and responsibility. It is felt in London that it would be very unfortunate if, whenever international difficulty is overcome by self-control and a spirit of compromise to which both sides must obviously have made some contribution, it must needs be represented as a concession by or defeat for one or the other side so that what is a victory for reason is debased into a victory for this or that Government or country.