WORDS NOT ENOUGH

Grey River Argus, 18 November 1942, Page 4

WORDS NOT ENOUGH

ALLIES’ WAR OBJECTIVE Must be Planned Now WILLKIE CRITICISES CHURCHILL [Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] NEW YORK, Nov. 16. Mr. Wendell Willkie, addressing the “Herald-Tribune” forum urged that the United Nations should immediately develop a plan to make materials of self-development available to all nations after the war. He sharply criticised Mr. Churchill’s recent declaration that he was not liquidating the British Empire. Mr. Willkie said: “This plan for self development cannot be accomplished by mere declarations of leaders, :as in the Atlantic Charter, when one of the two principals in the last few days, has seemingly defended the old imperialistic order, and declared to a shocked world ‘we mean to hold our own.’

“Unless the people of the United States, Britain, Russia, China and all the other United Nations are agreed on their purposes,” he said “idealistic expressions of hope, as embodied in the Atlantic Charter will live merely to mock us, as d ; d Wodrow Wilson’s 14 points. The ‘four freedoms’ will not be accomplished by the declarations of those momentarily in power; they will become real only if the peoples of the world forge them into actuality. “Political .internationalism will not accomplish them. Real freedom must rest on economic internationalism. Our most immediate common need is of course, a united military plan arrived at by a strategy board, representive not only of Britain and America, but likewise our other allies. Even such obviously essential co-operation has not yet been brought about.

“We cannot fight this war in silence,” he declared. “Whatever our experts say, it is the utmost folly, just short of suicide, to say that citizens should hold their tongues, bedause if we fight in silence these same experts will, in the end, even winning the war, win nothing but blood and ashes.” BRITISH “EMPIRE” CHANGE OF TITLE SUGGESTED (Rec. 12.10) LONDON, Nov. 17. Sir P. Spender, a member of the Australian War Advisory Council, in an interview with the Associated Press, said: “There is a great need to disabuse many American minds of many old conceptions of British imperialism.” He advocated the abandonment of the words “British Empire,” for the words /‘British Commonwealth” on all occasions. “One of the greatest forces for future world peace will be a most complete understanding between English-speaking nations,” he said, “but we must realise that it is not merely because Americans speak our language that they have our point of view.”