NO CHANCE OF PEACE NEGLECTED

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 296, 15 December 1939, Page 8

NO CHANCE OF PEACE NEGLECTED

Lord Halifax Sums Up British Stand (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Dec. 13. The offer made some time ago by the Queen of the Netherlands and the King of the Belgians of their mediatory offices, which was subsequently rejected by the German Government, was recalled to-day in a debate in the House of Lords initiated by Lord Darnley with the support of Lord Arnold, who had consistently criticised the policy of resistance to aggression for several rears on pacifist grounds. Lord Balfour summed up the attitudes of these two speakers as: “War settles nothing—let’s try for a compromise.’’ On this he commented that it was no use thinking of peace unless the enemy wanted peace.

The Bishop of Chichester said he was not a pacifist nor an advocate of peace at any price, but he opposed the conception of the so-called fight to a finish. The guarantees the British people sought, for the future, he thought, would not be/ obtained by the continuation of the war beyond the moment when they could be secured by negotiations. Lord Samuel considered that if Germany were willing to withdraw from Poland, the way would be open to negotiation, but, with the military, position as it now was, negotiations would clearly lead nowhere.

The Opposition Leader, Lord Snell, intervened to express anxiety lest the observations of Lord Darnley and Lord Arnold should create misapprehension abroad regarding British public opinion. No peace was of the slightest, value, he: said, unless it was negotiated with a; Government which would keep the', peace. The British people, he believed,, had no desire to destroy the German nation. Their sole desire was that' Germany should resume her ancient and revered place in world history. . Lord Snell’s anxieties were shown toj be exaggerated when the Foreign! Minister, Lord Halifax, replied, for he> was able to describe how foreign representatives who came to him at the Foreign Office told him how profoundly’ they were impressed by the British, national unity and by the evidence off the people’s resolution which they encountered in all quarters. Lord Halifax also expressed his disi like of the phrase “fight to a finish,V which gave the impression of peoplq fighting for the mere sake of fightingj That definitely was not the position of the British Government or the British people. “We have always been prepared to negotiate,” said Lord Halifax. “We were prepared before the war, and we have never closed the door to negotiations in anything we have said or done since the war began.” Unfortunately, although Hitler ha asserted in his speeches that he waj anxious for peace, it was far from certain that he was anxious tor peace on terms which would make for the peace of Europe. Lord Halifax said that all members of the House of Lords were agreed on general principles. They all felt it was a good plan to settle by negotiation. Nobody could feel more strongly than he did the horrors and agony of war. Nobody could feel more strongly how criminal it would be to miss any real opportunity for peace. But then they, came to the fundamental question. They stood for the causes that had led the country into war, and, if they were right, it would be wrong to cease until they had dong their utmost to secure those causes. Lord Halifax concluded by recalling ■the British and French answers to tbs mediatory offer, leaving the door open for negotiation, and the slamming of th< door by the Nazi Foreign Minister, von Ribbentrop, in Berlin, and expressed his view that, after the German action, it was a very academic question whether the offer remained open on the side of its originators, the sovereigns of the Low Countries.