DANGER TO PEACE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23883, 10 August 1939, Page 11

DANGER TO PEACE

DISTORTION OF EVENTS UNOFFICIAL WRITERS POSSIBLE EFFECT IN EUROPE (British Official Wireless) (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph- Copyright) RUGBY, Aug. 8. (Received Aug. 9, at 7 p.m.) In the final debates on foreign affairs in both Houses of Parliament before the recess, Mr Chamberlain and Lord Halifax made it clear that the British Government could not regard the immediate situation in either Europe or the Far East without anxiety. Observers in London a'gree that the efforts made since March to build up an anti-aggres-sion front had a considerable effect in discouraging adventure, and therefore serving the sole purpose for which, as British statesmen have all along insisted, they were undertaken, namely, restoration of confidence. Diplomatic circles here feel that responsible leaders in all countries realise the importance of preventing the growth of tension. Lord Halifax drew attention, however, to a source of danger to peace which still cannot be ignored when he told the House of Lords that " the task of statesmen to-day is made doubly difficult by those official propagandists and unofficial journalists and writers who deliberately invent, exaggerate, or distort events and their implications." Mr Chamberlain also referred again to the poisoning of the wells of international understanding by hate and fear manufactured by press distortion and vilification. There are a number of questions outstanding in Europe which, as events in Danzig over the week-end again illustrated, can be dangerous to peace or can be rendered relatively harmless, according as they are magnified into trials of strength or kept in perspective and handled with tact and responsibility. It is felt in London that it would be very unfortunate if, whenever an international difficulty is overcome by selfcontrol and a spirit of compromise, to which both sides must obviously have made some contribution, it must needs be represented as a concession by or defeat for one or other side, so that what is a victory for reason is debased into a victory for this or that Government or country.