Understanding Fellowship Guarantee to Peace

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 210, 5 September 1944, Page 4

Understanding Fellowship Guarantee to Peace

(Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 4. If l have no wish to underrate anything any other nation has done or is doing, but the most valuable . thing to-day is friendship between the British Commonwealth and the United States of America," said the Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser) at the official luncheon of welcome to the American Minister to New Zealand (Mr. K. S. Patton to-day. “Those of us who hold public positions have a duty not to say anything likely to impair that friendship. ’' The friendship of Australia, New Zealand, France, the Netherlands and Britain through the Fiji Islands with the United States in the South Pacific was a very valuable thing and must not bo severed as the years went by. There was no military, economic or any other possible justification for a difference of opinion or bad feeling between them. Problems were being considered by conferences which would mould humanity for years to come, and such hours of opportunity did not come often. World security, world food, world trade and world economy, world relief and rehabilitation, and the formulation of a sane monetary system which would help every nation, were matters which were being considered. Everyone of them was based on the necesisty to give all nations and peoples a chance to live under the principles of freedom from want and fear laid down in the Atlantic* 1 Charter. “There may be things about the British Commonwealth difficult to understand," said Mr. Fraser, “but the closer the bonds of Empire have become the greater the love and friendship between its members have become." Mr. Fraser spoke of the great ambassadors of their country that the American troops who had visited the Dominion had been, and said he had told the Dominion’s troops overseas that tho battle of the American Marines at Tarawa—Marines whom so many had seen set out from Wellington in the great convoy—ranked with any of tho other great battles of She war for grim and bitter fighting. ‘ ‘ Those men are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh," said Mr. Fraser. Replying, Mr. Patton said the time for discarding the weapons of war for the implements of peace was close at hand. The postwar period of economic and political adjustments would be no less critical than the period of armed conflict which it would supplant. “Victory will be ‘only an incident in the march of timp unless the postwar problems of peace are faced with the same loyalty, unity of purpose and unselfish effort as that which made of the peoples of the United Nations staunch comrades in arms—and that without the stimulus of immediate danger to our institutions and our loved ones, without the excitement and thrill of battle. “But a general agreement in regard to desirable objectives will not be enough. Definite projects, plans for which have been the object of serious study for some time by the United States and other interested Governments, must be adopted, implemented and integrated if the postwar settlement is to be an effective barrier to future world unrest. “We must remember that the scourge of war is an ever-present threat, and we must not forget that eternal vigilance and constancy of the unity of peoples who believe in human rights are the only bulwarks against war, and that understanding fellowship is the only guarantee of peace." The luncheon was by a widely representative gathering including Cabinet Ministers and members of the Consular Corps and the Armed Services.