REVIN’S HOPES OF ATLANTIC COMMUNITY AND DEMOCRACY

Grey River Argus, 21 February 1949, Page 5

REVIN’S HOPES OF ATLANTIC COMMUNITY AND DEMOCRACY

(Rec. 10.30). LONDON, February 19. Work on the Atlantic Pact had been held up because of the Russian attitude, so Britain therefore had to turn to people with whom she could work and who wanted to work with her, said Rt. Hon. Ernest Bevin (Secretary for Foreign Affairs) when ■speaking at Bristol. “Therefore”, he continued, “we now are in the process of trying to create an Atlantic community—a vast, community, a great industrial community, a powerful community. I want to feel that America and the others who join the pact are together contributing to each other’s welfare. If we achieve this, if the West and the other peace-loving nations get together now, and get. a complete understanding, and co-ordin-ate defence efforts, I assert that there will be no war for hundreds of years!

“If we get co-operation, instead of going into conferences and listening to abuse, as we have had to do, we shall sit down and do business. Others will live their way; we shall live ours, and peace will be assured for generations to come. We do not want to do this for war. We shall attack no one. But we are aiming not to be attacked by anyone”.

Mr Bevin continued: “That is our policy. We shall never be aggressors —we never have been. Nothing would have given me such pleasure as to have got political defence and cooperation; to have been joining with every country in the world for economic recovery and rehabilitation.

BRITAIN’S DIFFICULTY “Britain is in the process of a veritable economic revolution. We have had to face the issue that, because of the dollar problem and of our own difficulties, certain countries wanted to charge higher prices. At times, we had to refuse to buy, and we may have to refuse to buy again, rather than be bled. The world has got to realise that a taking advantage of shortages between one country and another is not the way to keep stability. It is not a good augury for peace. “The British Government and people are willing for all countries to have the system they want, but not at the expense of endeavouring to force it on us. If it were thought that Socialism weant the destruction of human liberty and the denying to the people of the right to say what they feel and what they think, I would not be a supporter of it”. Mr Bevin said: “Anything stopping the liberty of the mind is disastrous. We have seen, in Eastern Europe, democracy, as we understand it, completely wiped out”. Mr Bevin said that he had read Foreign Office reports about people in Eastern Europe who had been taken away and had never been heard of again. Some of them had been taken to slave camps, “as bad as Hitler’s”.