Empire Unity Still Vital Factor in World ‘Peace, Says Menzies

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22872, 16 February 1949, Page 7

Empire Unity Still Vital Factor in World ‘Peace, Says Menzies

(10 a.m.) CANBERRA, Feb. 16. “We all accept the ideals of the United Nations but the real danger is that unsound confidence in the executive power of the United Nations will induce many people to think that Empire unity is outmoded or unnecessary,” said the. Leader of the 'Opposition, Mr. R. G. Menzies, speaking in the foreign affairs debate in the House of Representatives. “The truth is that it is more essential than ever,” he continued. “In the absence of great strength in the British

Commonwealth and in the United States there will be no peace and the United Nations will be a dismal failure. "What the External Affairs Minister, Dr. Evatt, does not perceive is that the United Nations, which is essentially a forum, a place of debate, should not even in the light of extravagant claims by its champions be thought either to have effective power or to be an effective substitute for power. “It is a melancholy but inescapable fact that peace in Europe and the continued presence of the Western allies on German soil and perhaps on French soil are in no sense preserved by the United Nations but exist because the United States has atomic bombs and the Soviet has not.”