Allies Fighting Whole World’s Battles, P.M. Says

Northern Advocate, 1 February 1940, Page 5

Allies Fighting Whole World’s Battles, P.M. Says

(Received 2 p.m.) RUGBY. January 31

The Allies’ war aims, declared Mr Chamberlain, in the course of his speech, were well-known, “but one thing I think is becoming clearer every day, not from anything we say, but from the actions of the Germans themselves.

“Thai is that we are fighting not only for ourselves, but for every country which is oppressed by the fear that some day they may find themselves in the position which lias been successively occupied by Czechoslovakia, Poland, and now by Finland.”

He went on to disclaim any intention to interfere with the independent judgment of neutrals, adding only this provision:

“We may and do ask them, whether they be small or weak or great and powerful, to consider that, though in the exercise of undisputed belligerent rights, we have taken action which causes inconvenience or even loss, at any rate we have never sunk a neutral ship. “We have never’wittingly sacrificed a single neutral life. “On the other hand the enemy threatens the existence of states which are too small, too weak and too near to defy them, and they continue to show the most complete and most callous indifference, not merely to neutrals’ interests, but to the ordinary dictates of

common humanity. Mr Chamberlain was led by these consideratians to examine the question of the disturbance of neutral trade, and to reaffirm the British desire to see after the war the restoration of a clear exchange of goods and services between the nations. Not Indifferent to Their Losses

Britain was not indifferent to neutral losses, nor did she intend to use the measures taken in the prosecution of the war for the purposes of unfair trade advantage in peace.

“We recognise that for the full development of international trade it must flow along easy channels, and we must put an end to the vicious policy of economic nationalism and anarchy, which did so much to upset the last great peace settlement.

One of our foremost aims in the future must be the restoration of international trade, which seems to us to present the best opportunity for restoring, in turn, the standard of living and consuming power of the nations. Reference to Asama. Ma-ru Incident

That is the policy we have in mind when the time comes to turn once more from war to peace. The Premier’s speech contained a reference to the recent incident with Japan over the Asama Maru. “Nothing more distresses us than that there should, in the mind of the Japanese people and Government, be any idea that we have deliberately or intentionally exercised belligerent rights, as we saw them, with want of courtesy or consideration to the Japanese nation,” he said. “We are bound to take all the measures open to us to frustrate the machinations of a powerful and utterly unscrupulous enemy, but certainly the last thifig we want to do is affront the self-respect of a friendly nation.”