BRITAIN’S PLEDGE

Hokitika Guardian, 22 August 1939, Page 5

BRITAIN’S PLEDGE

DEFINITELY GIVEN I ' IT CANNOT BE BROKEN, Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright; _ August 21. “The Times,” in a leading article says: “Mr Chamberlain has returned to Londoil- a day . earlier than originally expected. This- is :one of many si o .is L/L Heightened tension. Critical days lie .ahead of Britain and France, and of like-minded, nations who are determined that fulminations—but- with the Poles, as the criminals, instead of the Czechs—shall not achieve their purpose. Britain's temper, nowadays, is. very diiferent from that of last autumn.. The machinery of Jtieir sutler's technique has become visible. There can be no settlement until these methods are discarded. If the outcome is war, it will be because othercountries find Herr Hitler s Germany an impossible neighbour. Britain has given Poland a pledge from'which she will not—and cannot —recede. She gave no such pledges to Czechoslovakia, wnose encirclement, before her destruction, is paralleled by Germany bringing Slovakia under her control in order to pursue the encirclement of'Poland. If Germany .cannot'live with her '.Neighbours except by J ihefr’' subjugation', then, they imist* unite, against her, faith. Britain by their side.

AN AMERICAN VIEW. ON PARTICIPATION OF WAR. NEW YORK, August 20. The “New York Daily News,’’ a paper with a circulation of two million copies a day, has an editorial indicating it has taken a new stand. The daily is a strongly isolationist, journal, but nevertheless in an editorial to-day it appears to be sharing the opinion of the seventysix per cent, of Americans as expressed in the poll taken by the Institute of National namely that American isolation is impossible. The paper says: “Maybe we cannot keep out of Europe’s troubles. the thing for ns is to keep out of them as long as we can do so, and to let the European countries spill their own blood for two or three years, so that we will not have to stop in for so long, when we finally, come to settle the peace terms. It was bad'enough that we finally had to get into the World War, but it was a mighty good thing that we did not begin spilling our blood copiously until the last few months of it.”

The newspaper adds that the American Navy is sure to guarantee that the standard of living will not slump in the United States when the rest of the world goes to. war.

CABINET TO CONFER, (Received this day at 9.25 a.in.). . LONDON, August 21. Mr Neville Chamberlain and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, conversed for three and a-half hours. A Jtrtually full Cabinet meeting will be held to-morrow.