“Shot At And Insulted”— BRITAIN’S DECLINE: CHURCHILL GIVES GRAVE WARNING

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 May 1949, Page 5

“Shot At And Insulted”— BRITAIN’S DECLINE: CHURCHILL GIVES GRAVE WARNING

LONDON, May 20 (Rec. 10 a.m.).—“Wherever you turn your eyes, you see the ugly spectacle of Britons being shot or insulted in some part of the world,” Mr Churchill told an enthusiastic audience of 22,000 people at an open-air meeting in Glasgow tonight.. “The South American republics twist the lion’s tail in the Antarctic, the Albanians mine British warships and kill our sailors, Israelite aircraft shoot down R.A.F. fighters and the Chinese Red Army fires upon the British Fleet with impunity and drives it back. On the morrow of unconditional surrender, the proud British nation, by an act of what history will call folly, flung itself into the hands of the Socialist Party, which has brought it lower among men than it has been for centuries. The Socialist Government does not like the small treatment Britain receives any more than we do, but its outlook is such as to bring an inevitable and endless series of humiliations upon our heads.

Mr Churchill expressed the hope that the title British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations would continue, and he added: “In this title there is room for all and none need be repelled or slighted by its terms. Lamentable disasters have occurred in India, Burma, and Palestine which might easily have been avoided by wise, competent handling. No Use “Bewailing The Past Mr Churchill continued: “However, as a party aspiring to guide the nation, we must not consume our strength in bewailing the past. We have no choice but to accept what has happened. . “It was this conviction which led me to accept, on behalf of the Conservative Party, the settlement which has been reached about India and to save by every means in our power whatever can be rescued in this period of decline and eclipse. “The Conservative members in both Houses of Parliament have never failed to give steadfast suppoi t to the Socialist Government, notwithstanding the evils they have brought upon us, whenever their conduct has conformed to the national interest or duty. We have not hesitated to support them in their general treatment of the strange event I which has happened in Southern Ireland, whereby the Irish Republic has been proclaimed, although we are not to treat the southern Irish as aliens. We attach, however, vital importance to the statutory declaration of the determination of Britain that Ulster shall not be forced out of the United Kingdom against her will. We cannot forget that Northern Ireland, by loyalty to the King and the Empire, kept open our only outlet to the seas by the Clyde and Mersey, without which we should have perished while Mr de Valera and his Southern Ireland Government were quite ready to watch us with perfect indifference being enslaved by Hitler and sink forever in the oceans of the past.” Mr Churchill said there was a common resolve between the Conservatives and the Socialists not to sacrifice or betray the people of Ul- ' ster by driving them out against their will from the British Empire and ' Commonwealth of Nations. The Conservatives accepted the settlement under which India would come forward as a republic within the circle of the Commonwealth nations. A Fateful Year

Mr Churchill added: “We have greatly added to our burdens and subtracted from our strength and reputation by the course the present Socialist Government has taken in domestic politics, but I am sure that, when the British nation rouses itself again in its vigour and hope, what

has been saved will be preserved and some things that have been lost may be regained.”

Mr Churchill paid a tribute of gratitude and admiration to the United States for its exertion in the cause of peace and freedom. He said this was a fateful year for Britain with a general election in which the people would have to choose between the rigid, levelling way of Socialism, which was not in harmony with the facts of human nature and was incompatible with the freedom, variety, progress, and prosperity of a modern civilised society. “Greed And Spite” Mr Churchill said: “Fifty million of our vast population who have come into being as a result of free enterprise, hard work, and active competition are now being undermined. Even their livelihood and their survival are being imperilled by the application of crude and doctrinaire theories founded on greed and spite.” He-said that nationalisation of industry had failed in every case, and he gave an assurance that, if the Conservatives were elected to power, they would immediately repeal the nationalisation of the steel industry.

Mr Churchill concluded that the only logical end to the Socialist road was the uniformity of the Communist system, ■ from the brutality and tyranny of which the Socialists themselves recoiled in disgust.