THE NEW EUROPE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24633, 14 June 1941, Page 9

THE NEW EUROPE

HITLER’S PRETENSIONS “A MOCKING FANTASY ” PLIGHT OF CONQUERED STATES RUGBY, June 12. The following is the text of Mr Churchill’s speech in the historic meeting at St. James’s Palace:— “ In the twenty-second month of the war against Nazism we meet here in order to proclaim the high purposes and resolves of the lawful constitutional Governments of Europe. Here before us on the table lie the title deeds of 10 nations or States / whose soil has been invaded and polluted, and whose men, women and children lie prostrate or writhing under the Hitler yoke. But here also, duly authorised by Parliament and the democracy of Britain, are gathered the servants of the ancient British monarchy and the accredited representatives of British dominions beyond the seas, or the Empire of India and Burma and; of our colonies in every quarter of the globe. They have drawn their swords in this cause. They will never let them fall till life is gone or victory won. “ Here we meet, while from across the Atlantic Ocean the hammers and lathes of the United States signal in a rising hum their message of encouragement and their promise of swift, evergrowing aid. “ What tragedies, what horrors, what crimes has Hitler and all that Hitler stands for brought upon Europe and the world! The ruins of Warsaw, Rotterdam and Belgrade are monuments which will long recall to future generations the outrage of unopposed air bombing applied with calculated scientific cruelty to helpless populations. “ Here in London and throughout the cities of our island and in Ireland there may also be seen the marks of devastation. “They are being repaid, and presently they will be more than repaid. Terrorisation and Exploitation “ But far worse than these visible injuries is the misery of the conquered peoples. We see them hounded, terrorised, and exploited. Their manhood by the million is forced to work under conditions indistinguishable in many eases from actual slavery. Their goods and chattels are pillaged or filched for worthless money. Their homes and their daily life are pried into and spied upon by the all-pervading system of secret political police, which, having reduced Germans themselves to abject docility, now stalks the streets and bywavs of a dozen lands. Their religious faiths have been affronted, persecuted, or oppressed in the interests of fantastic paganism, devised to perpetuate, worship, and sustain the tyranny of one abominable creature. Their traditions. their culture, their laws, and their institutions, social and political alike, have been supppressed by force or undermined by subtle, coldlyplanned intrigue. “The prisons of the Continent no longer suffice. The concentration camps are overcrowded. Every dawn German volleys crack, and Czechs, Poles. Dutchmen, Norwegians, Jugoslavs, and Greeks, Frenchmen, Belgians, and Luxemburgers make the great sacrifice for faith and country. “Such is the plight of once glorious Europe, and such are the atrocities against which we are in arms. It iv upon this foundation that Hitler, with Lis tattered lackey Mussolini at his tail, and Darlan frisking by his side, pretends to build out of his hatred, i.ppetite and racial assertion a new order for Europe. Never did so mocking a fantasy obsess the mind of mortal man.’’