MR CHAMBERLAIN’S VIEW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23599, 8 September 1938, Page 6

MR CHAMBERLAIN’S VIEW

NO WINNERS IN MODERN WAR “In Great Britain and. Ireland alorie the numbers of killed and wounded in the Great War amounted to nearly 2,500,000. In the British Empire the-figure was 3.500.000; and, if you take the total figures of all the countries engaged, friends md enemies alike, 21.000.000 were kdled and wounded,” said Mr Neville Chamberlain in a recent speech. “ When I think of those four terrible years, -of the 7.000,000 young men who were cut off in their prime, the 13,000,000 who were maimed and mutilated, the misery .and the suffering of the mothers and the fathers, the sons and the daughters, the relatives and the friends of those who were killed and wounded, then I am bound to. say again, what I have said before and what I say now. not only to you but to all the, world: In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are. no winners, but all are losers. “It is those thoughts,” Mr Chamberlain said, “ which have made me feel that it was my prime duty to strain every nerve to avoid a repetition of the Great War And I cannot believe that anyone who is not blinded by party prejudice, anyone who thinks what another war would mean, can fail to agree with me, and to desire that I should continue my efforts. Ever since the beginning of the war in Spain my colleagues and I realised, the inherent danger in the situation; that it might lead to war in Europe; and it was because of that consideration that, in conjuhction with the Government of France, we decided very early upon a policy of non-inter-vention, with the express purpose of confining'the civil war to Spain and preventing it from becoming a general conflagration. We have had endless difficulties in that policy, but in spite of them all we have succeeded in our main objects.