CAUSE OF FREEDOM

Evening Star, Issue 23845, 27 March 1941, Page 10

CAUSE OF FREEDOM

BRITAIN AND AMERICA A COMMON PURPOSE SEALED ANEW BY AID ACT (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 25. ■ In accordance with well-established tradition, the British Ambassador to Washington Lord Halifax, made his first public speech in the United States as Ambassador at a dinner given in bis honour by the Pilgrims’ Society. Jibe instinctive reaction of the British and American peoples to the challenge offered by the new philosophy of totalitarian dictatorship was identical, he said, and as the struggle proceeded reason and conscience combined to make both realise even more clearly the dark menace to things held equally precious. “ This common purpose has been sealed anew by the recent passage into law of the Lease and Lend Act,” Lord Halifax said. “It is difficult to exaggerate what this means. Across the seas in the front line, which is Britain, as in the hearts of those submerged for the time under the German wave, there will be felt a new confidence as all alike remember the history of the last war and see the time surely approaching when the weight of this nation must tip the scales.” Referring to the cause of freedom and_ democracy, for which the Allies are fighting, Lord Halifax said he thought that United States citizens would take the same view of the meaning of these words as did the British peoples. “ There seem to us to he certain principles that are essential to life as we wish to live it and see it lived. These principles are now in dire peril, and we believe, therefore, that we are truly fighting for our lives, since life to us would be worthless if the principles on which it is built are destroyed. We do well to remind ourselves of what these principles are. They are like an iceberg of which the greater part is out of sight. They lie deep below the surface of man’s outward being. “ T would state thus what in varying forms is in many minds to-day—first, the religions principle of the absolute value of every human soul, and, secondly, the moral principle of individual liberty. This finds expression in two ways—in the sphere of politics through equal opportunity, justice, and the rule of law. economically through the direction of national effort to the creation of a condition that may bring some real security into the daily life of the humblest citizens, and, finally, the domestic principle of the solidarity of the family, which is the natural development of the individual. Unless we build on these foundations—religions, moral, social, and domestic—we have no hope of finding the way to happiness.”