POST-WAR POLICY

Grey River Argus, 26 February 1943, Page 6

POST-WAR POLICY

DISARMAMENT OF ENEMY. LONDON, Feb. 24. Thirty-four nations had adhered to the Atlantic Charter, Mr. Eden said, in reply to a question in the Commons. As the Charter was a declaration of principle, the question of ratification did not arise. Mr. Roosevelt told the Press that plans were under way for a United Nations conference on post-war food supplies. It might be held this spring. Mr. Roosevelt made it clear that the conference would not be concerned with post-war relief, which he described as a separate problem. Mr. Morrison at the Guildhall, when defining the British Government’s views of post-war international organisation said: “The immediate post-war task is to disarm the a'ggressor nations, and put it beyond possibility that they can trouble the oeace of the world again until enough time has elapsed for a genuine deep change in the heart and mind, among their misgu’ded deluded peoples.” It was the natural right, he said, io look forward to a period in which the victorious Allies would be the guardians of the world’s peace. Special resoonsibility. would rest upon the great ‘powers, particularly Russia United States, China, and Britain. The sword of world justice' and world sovereignty would be in the hands of those four nations. They must see that in the course of time, they mobilise, behind the effective power they would wield, the free consent of all free peoples of the world, Including the politically reconstructed nations, who had been victims of the Axis. This pointed towards the creation in due time of a genuinely representative world politidal association. This association would have to nrovide means by which peoples of the world would find solutions to world problems. Such solutions must no longer be sought by perilous bargainings of separate armed nations, but by reasoned moderate 1 mint approaches to questions of difficultv and problems of change: approaches in which there was general readiness tn sacrifice the old idea of unrestricted national sovereignty in the interests of common action. If that was an Utopian ideal, then the hope of world peace was an illusion His Majesty’s Government was commuted to this objective. A world association fullv representative, as the League of Nations was not, was the aim, with a unified resolve to work out and implement the positive policy, possessing sufficient force to achieve its agreed purposes and restrain those who would impede them. Mr. Morrison added that this did not mean the maintenance of heavy armaments, but readiness to jump by mil'taTy action on a potential aggressor.