“AN ALL-OUT WAR”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20620, 22 November 1941, Page 4

“AN ALL-OUT WAR”

WORLD AT STAKE VISITOR ON ISSUES SPEECH AT RECEPTION (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. “This is indeed a magnificent welcome to New Zealand,” said Mr. A. Duff Cooper. British representative in the Far East, when speaking to more than 2,000 people who crowded the Town Hall for the civic reception extended by the Mayor. Mr. Duff Cooper was accompanied by Lady Diana Duff Cooper, and both were given a most enthusiastic reception. “It makes one wonder at the temerity of those who dared to challenge the British Empire when one finds here on the opposite side of the earth a whole great people living in freedom, loving freedom, fighting for freedom and prepared to die for freedom —members of a great commonwealth of independent nations, spread so broad and planted so deep with thoughts so high and courage so inexhaustible, said Mr. Duff Cooper.

“When one sees this, one wonders how even the most assiduous, hardworking and deliberately active instruments for ill-will of a country shut in among other countries, with none of the same freedom, none of the same traditions and none of the same spirit, a country which has failed to make a success- of any colonisation she has attempted, could dare to hope that in the end they could triumph over the free will and determination of so many and sucti democratic countries.

Ignorance in Germany

“I have been in Germany between the last war and this one, and nothing astonished me more than the widespread ignorance of what the British Empire meant, of the difference between the Dominions and the colonies and of the basic faith that held the whole fabric together. We have been through stern times since then.

“Let us have no doubt about what the next few years will mean. They will mean either that Hitler is going to rule the whole world or that he and his companions, abettors and supporters are going to be wiped away and utterly destroyed. This is no war where, at the end, we will be shaking hands with the defeated and making fine treaties under which he will pledge himself not to do it again. No one outside a lunatic asylum will ever sign a treaty with Hitler again. Paper.is growing rather scarce in England to-day, and none is going to waste a nice piece of white paper by putting his name on it with Hitler’s. Battle for World’s Future

“This is an all-out war,” concluded Mr. Duff Cooper. “Not only our lives depend upon our success. Not only—which is more important—does the future of the Empire depend upon our victory, but it is the whole world and the future of the whole world that we are fighting for this day. This, is battle we are waging. This is struggle and, with God’s help, we shall win.”

In his address of welcome, the Mayor asked Mr. Duff Cooper when he returned to Britain to express to the Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, the people of New Zealand’s profound admiration for them and its heartfelt sympathy in the trials and sufferings which they had been called upon to undergo. The Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser, associated himself with Mr. Allum and welcomed Mr. Duff Cooper and Lady Diana Duff Cooper on behalf of the Government, Parliament and the people.