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Hokitika Guardian, 28 April 1938, Page 4

“[ am not the least afraid of Italy or of any other Power I know of in the world,” said Viscount .Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, explaining the British Government’s new method in foreign policy. ”1 am not afraid of war in the. sense that 1 fear defeat, because 1 know the temper of Britain. I know that Britain ,wovild never embark on war unless it thought it both right and inevitable, and I also know that, having embarked on war it would not let go until, as usual, it bad won. All that l know. But I, with everybody else, detest war as any man of memory or imagination or natural affection or even ordinary cominonsense must detest it, for the horrors that it brings and the havoc to human lives and human civilisation. lit the present state of the world one thing js certain: things will either get better or worse. International relations are not going to remain stationary. Therefore, if you do not. want to get worse, you must take active steps to try to make them better. Therefore we refuse to fold our hands and merely drift along on dangerous tidks.”