THE DEMOCRACIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24636, 18 June 1941, Page 5

THE DEMOCRACIES

KINSHIP AND UNITY A SUBLIME RESOLVE SAVJNG THE WORLD RUGBY. June 16. Mr Churchill, broadcasting to the United States to-night on the occasion of his acceptance of the honorary degree of doator of civil law at Rochester University, recalled the fact that Rochester was the home town of his mother. His mother was born there., "What touched me most in this ceremony," he said, "is that sense of kinship and unity which I feel exists between us this afternoon.

"Strong tides of emotion," said Mr Churchill, "and fierce surges of passion sweep the broad expanses of union in this year of fate. In this prodigious travail there are many elemental forces, there is much heart-searching and selfquestioning, some pangs of sorrow, some conflict of voices, but no fear. The world is witnessing the .birth throes of a sublime resolve. I shall presume to confess to you that I have no doubts what that resolve will be. " Wickedness, enormous, panoplied, embattled, and seemingly triumphant, casts its shadow over Europe and Asia. Laws, customs, and traditions are broken up. Justice is cast from her seat, the rights, of the weak are trampled down, the grand freedoms of which the President of the United States has spoken so movingly are spurned and chained: the whole structure of man. his genius, his initiative, and his nobility are ground down under systems of mechanical barbarism and of organised and scheduled terror. "For more than a year we British have stood alone, uplifted by your sympathy and respect, and sustained by our own unconquerable will power and by the increasing growth and hopes of your massive aid.

"In these British islands that look so small upon the map we stand the faithful guardians of the rights and dearest hopes of a "dozen States and nations now gripped and tormented in base, cruel servitude. Whatever happens, we shall endure to the end. "But what is the explanation of the enslavement of Europe by the German Nazi regime? How did they do it? It is but a few years ago since one united gesture by the peoples great and small who are now broken in the dust would have warded off from mankind the fearful ordeal it has had to undergo. But there was no unity. There was no vision. The nations were pulled down one by one, while others gaped and chattered. One by one. each in his turn, they let themselves be caught. One after another they were felled by brutal violence or poisoned from within by subtle intrigue.

"And now the Old Lion, with her Lion cubs at her side, stands alone against hunters who are armed with deadly weapons and impelled by a desperate and destructive rage. Every month that passes adds to the length and perils of the journey that will have to be made. United we'stand, divided we fall. Divided, the dark age returns. United, we can save and guide the world."