Sir Samuel Hoare's Challenge to Nations.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 12 September 1935, Page 7

Sir Samuel Hoare's Challenge to Nations.

Received Thursday, 2 a.m. GENEVA, Sept. 11. Soon after 11 a.m. to-day Sir Samuel Hoare, British Foreign Minister, addressed the League Assembly. He said: — "It is unjust and dangerously misleading to hold or encourag"e the illusion that Britain is animated by any lower motive than fidelity to the League. Her unwavering fidelity in the present case is no exception, but a continuance of the rule. "The recent response of British public opinion shows how completely the nation supports the Government's full acceptance of the obligations of membership as the keynote of its foreign policy. The League stands —and my country with it—for the collective maintenance of the Covenant in its entirety, and particularly for steady collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression. It is a principle of international conduct to which the British Government will hold with firm, enduring and universal persistence. '' Sir Samuel Hoare emphasised the anxiety of some countries not possessing colonial empires and sources of raw materials, and said Britain was ready to take her share in a collective attempt to deal with the problem, but calm dispassionate consideration was impossible in an atmosphere threatened by war. "If the manifold increase of the burden of the Covenant is to be borne it must be collectively. If risks for peace are to be run they must run by all,'' he added. "On behalf of his Majesty's Government I can say they are second to none in their intention to fulfil within the measure of their capacity the obligations the Covenant lays upon them.''