GENERAL ENDORSEMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 22 August 1945, Page 5

GENERAL ENDORSEMENT

CONTINUITY OF POLICIES Rugby, August 20. There is general endorsement in today’s national Press of the main lines of Mr Bevin’s speech. "The Times” stresses the fact that Mr Bevin declared that the basis of the Government’s policy was in keeping with that worked out by the Coarhion. resting principally on co-operation by the three greijj Powers who had been the main artificers of victory. It endorses Mr Bevin’s argument that economic reconstruction must precede attempts to restore political systems to their normal working order, and considers that this is nowhere more important than in Germany. As an instance of the magnitude of the task of the Control Commission, it quotes Mr Bevin as saying that more than a million "displaced persons” had been returned to their homes from the British zone in Germany, leaving one and a quarter million still housed in camps and perhaps half a million at large. The paper questions whether sufficient authority has been given to the Central Commission and its organs to secure execution of its decisions, and whether sufficiently concrete plans have been framed for economic control and reconstruction in Germany. Almost all the newspapers give considerable space in their leaders to the Foreign Secretary’s references to southeastern Europe. The "Daily Herald” says : “His forthright denunciation of the Governments of Hungary. Bulgaria and Rumania shows the world precisely where Britain henceforth stands. Many unwelcome things may indeed happen in Europe during the birthpangs of reconstruction, but knowledge now exists that this country is now back on its honourable basis of democractic principles, that ‘playing ball’ with the so-called ‘right people’ in other lands is over, that our future will lean inexorably on the side of freedom and justice for ordinary people everywhere.”

NON-INTERVENTION “ECHO

The “Daily Telegraph" says : “The one country in the Balkan peninsula for which we are directly responsible, Greece, is the only one where the people have been offered a real choice in choosing their Government and constitution. As for Spain and the bitter cry from the outer Left that the British Government should take action against General Franco’s regime, Mr Bevin has answered with devasting commonsense. He is, like every former Foreign Secretary, satisfied ‘that intervention by a foreign Power in the internal affairs of Spain would have the opposite effect to that desired. The sentence must have sounded to Mr Eden like an echo of one of his own from 10 years back.” The “News Chronicle” remarks that Mr Bevin voiced an opinion generally held in this country when he said that the Poles would be laying up trouble for themselves if their new frontiers were fixed too far to the west. It adds; “The speech as a whole makes an important contribution to our outlook on foreign affairs. This is because Mr Bevin stressed — what is, in fact, fundamental —the economic unity of the post-war world. His appointment to the Foreign Office symbolises the fact that ‘diplomacy’ as it was once understood is dead. From now onward foreign policy, if it is to serve (he common ends of humanity, must imply an integration of economic capacities and requirements side by side with the pursuit of a political order conforming to the world’s needs.” The “Manchester Guardian” considers

that “everything rests on the Allies maintaining the magnificent unity with which they have won the war.” but that this unity must not be based on "unreal compromises and sham arrangements. Frankness of speech is called for again. There is a new spirit entering the international Messrs Churchill. Eden and Bevin have all breathed it. The American Note Bulgaria is another sign. It springs from a belief that we must face our difficult ies openly and boldy. “If Russia has not been able so far to see eye to eye with us on some questions. we will still not get anywhere with her unless’she understands where the possibilities of divergence lie and how strongly the British and Amercan peoples feel.” the paper says. The “Guardian” adds: "Mr Bevin’s broad sweep concluded with some temperate words about the Far East. The occasion might have justified a passing word about our political intentions in our liberated territories. It was hardly enough to refer only to the return of Hong Kong and the restoration of British interests. Still, it was only .a beginning, and Mr Bevin has amply shown that he has the courage and principle his office needs.”

CONTINUITY THE KEY’NOTE

‘Mr Bevin’s speech on foreign affairs will be read throughout the world with relief.” says the ‘Daily Mail” in an editorial "In this first important pronouncement Foreign Minister, he made it clear that continuity is still the keynote of British foreign policy. With 'his bigness of spirit. Mr Bevin proclaims frankly that the Labour policy on world affairs is that laid down by his predecessor. Mr Anthony Eden, namely the continuation of a realistic policy.’