SOVIET AIMS

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 July 1946, Page 7

SOVIET AIMS

PREDOMINANT PROBLEM SPIRIT OF CO-OPERATION LACKING “HARBOURING ILLUSIONS” (Rec. 10.5 a.m.) . LONDON, July 30. Questions about Russia similar to those asked in the House of Representatives last week, have been debated in the House of Lords. Lord Cranborne said that one predominant problem faced the world to-day overshadowing and governing all others, one question mark to which no one had found the answer. That problem was -Russia, her policy and her relations with the rest of the world. All wanted to co-operate with Russia within the framework of the world organisation. Britain fought with her in the war and wanted to work with her in peace, but any solid basis of understanding seemed unhappily to be lacking. Delay No Longer Possible. Russia, he said, was probably the only country which harboured the illusion that it was possible to go her own way and snap her fingers at the world. If no material advance was made at the Peace Conference Britain ought not to delay longer. She ought to take the necessary measures to regularise the position outside the Russian sphere with or without Russian co-operation. The time had come, said Lord Cranborne, to bring about a closer association of the nations of western Europe. It should be the cornerstone of British foreign policy. The real dangei' in the present situation was that Russia should be allowed to hug the twin illusion that she could do without the rest of the world and that the rest of the world could not do without her. “So long as she remains under those illusions the situation is bound to deteriorate, and she will sink deeper and deeper into isolationism.” The objective should be to waken her to reality and let her see where her own interests lay. As soon as she held out the hand of friendship and collaboration the Allies should be very ready to grasp it, he added. “Call Her Bluff.”

Lord Elibank spoke of the non-co-operative spirit of Russia regarding Germany. “This country is tired of it and so is the United States,” he said, “and if Russia will not co-operate, let the western world from now on play their own hand in the west and make their own arrangements for emergence from the slough into which the war plunged us. Russia, in advancing her own interests, has played a game of poker long enough. Let us call her bluff and look after our own interests, before it is too late, and we lose the game altogether.” The Lord High Chancellor (Lord Jowitt) agreed that the fundamental question to-day and in the future was going to be relationship with Russia. “I am bound to say that in spite of the difficulties, which are immense, I do not despair. Why should we despair? After all the Paris Conference itself is the result of agreement. I hope .some of the difficulties which confront us to-day- may be solved. The United Nations can and must survive.”