WHAT MUST BE DONE

Grey River Argus, 5 December 1940, Page 10

WHAT MUST BE DONE

THE FOREIGN OFFICE as now constituted cannot conduct the diplomacy of the war of liberation, of which Mr Churchill speaks. It still considers diplomacy as something apart from strategy. It cannot conceive that our allies may be dispossessed peoples without states, or that war aims which promise liberation may be fundamental to the task of winning the war. War aims are just part of propaganda as they were in the last war, fine things you say to please your own public and to deceive the enemy, while the army, navy and air force does the real fighting. If European reovlution is our war strategy, as it must be to counter Hitler’s dynamic, then our foreign policy must be brought into line with this strategy. This implies a revolution in our methods Qf diplomacy as well as in our propaganda. It means that we must snatch from Hitler the propaganda weapon which he uses to undermine democracies; that we must recognise as enemies those who accept Nazi doctrines, and recognise as friends every force which can be mobilised to weaken the Nazis. —From “A Hundred Million Allies—lf We Choose.” This story was told to me by a Chinese friend—otherwise I should not dare to tell it. In a street of a certain character (as a certain hind of journalist would call it) an A.R.P. Warden noticed an imperfect blackout. He said to a woman who answered his knock: “There’s chink in that room up there.” “No,” she said, “it’s not a Chink; it’s a Japanese gentleman.” —(CRITIC, in the “New Statesmen’-)).