WORLD PEACE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 177, 27 June 1936, Page 7

WORLD PEACE

PLEA FOR UNDERSTANDING. BY LORD LONDONDERRY. ATTITUDE TO GERMANY. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received June 27, 11.40 a.m. LONDON,. June 26. Lord Londonderry, speaking at a meeting of the County Down Conservative Association, caused astonishment by declaring that it was surprising of Mr Baldwin to have announced in the House of Commons that in 1935 (when Lord Londonderry was the Air Minister) he had been misled regarding German disarmament. He added : Mr Baldwin was not misled. 1 continually informed him, both of German aerial rearmament and the approximate rate of it. I had no reason to revise the approximate figures with which those responsible supplied me in order to place my colleagues in possession of the facts. Lord Londonderry, who recently visited Germany, added: Germans are as equally desirous of peace as Britons. We should not receive Herr Hitler’s offers in a narrow, pedantic spirit. The peace of the world depends primarily on understanding between France, Germany, and Britain.

MINISTER FOR AVAR.

CRITICISM OF SPEECH. REFERENCE TO DICTATORSHIPS. LONDON, June 25. “Anglo-French friendship is not a question of sentiment but of necessity. It- is a question of life an death” declared Mr A. Duff-Cooper (British Secretary for War), at the annual banquet of the Franco-British Association at Pans. “France’s frontier is ours. Peoples elsewhere in Europe are being taught that liberty is a talse ideal, ' that individuals do not 'count, that race alone matters, and that abedience to a single nlan’s will is the highest human virtue. Such ideals are not new. Tliey are so old as tyranny and completely foreign to western civilisation, finally, people are preaching that war is desirable, and that death on the battlefield is the highest ambition. We consider such teaching in the highest degree detestable.” The Daily Herald’s political correspondent says: “There is grave disquiet in political circles over Mr Dulfcooper’s speech, which is generally regarded as one of the most glaring indiscretions committed by a Minister of the Crown for many years. Germany must regard the speech almost as a declaration of war. It is bound to make Mr Eden’s position at Geneva more difficult.”

The Daily Mail’s Berlin correspondent says tnat Mr Duff-Cooper’s speech is angrily criticised. A fioreigu Office bulletin describes it as insulting, saying that the co-operation and understanding which Germany desires will not be furthered if influential circles are allowed to continue to stir up animosity toward Germany and to declare that legitimate Germany interests are a source of danger to the rest of the world.

Mr G. M. Mander (Lib.) will ask Mr Baldwin in the House of Commons next week whether Mr Duff-Cooper’s speech represents the-settled policy of tne Government.