THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Thursday, January 28, 1943. SHAPING THE FUTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25135, 28 January 1943, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Thursday, January 28, 1943. SHAPING THE FUTURE

The dramatic significance of the conference between the leaders of the British and American people which is reported this morning is epitomised in the choice of a meeting place. Of all sites for an Allied war council, Casablanca would surely only a few months ago have seemed one of the world’s unlikeliest. Yet, in the sensationally changed circumstances since Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt last met, Casablanca, standing halfway between the Old World and the New, the military base of vast and extending operations, is an eminently appropriate meeting ground. The scope and .the success of the discussions held by the leaders and their advisers can be concluded from Mr Churchill’s satisfied description of the meetings as the most important war conference he had witnessed or attended. Previously when Anglo-American parleys of this nature were held, the atmosphere must have been exceedingly tense, in spite of the strong confidence of the Prime Minister and the President themselves in the successful outcome of the great enterprise to which their countries were committed. The problems that faced them were not permitted to weigh overheavily with them, or the North African venture could never have been planned and achieved, and it is on the basis of great accomplishment that the Allies can now build. In time, no doubt, something of the discussions will be made known to the-world, perhaps by way of movements of men and materials, possibly In blows at the Axis as sharp and unexpected as those which won French North Africa to the cause-of democracy. Meanwhile, the people of the United Nations will observe with pleasure the existence of absolute harmony among the Allies, as evidenced first in the cordiality of the meeting between Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt, and secondly in the assurance that planning was conducted on a world-wide basis, with M. Stalin and the Chinese Generalissimo constantly in touch with the decisions. If there is room for a regret, it is that the conference could not have been four-sided, but it can be understood that practical reasons precluded the participation of all the leaders of the United ' Nations. 'lt has been a stimulating, and it may confidently be said a world-shaking, ten days, during which the decision was made that there could be no compromise with the Axis, and the plans were laid to bring the powers of Fascism, West and East, into unconditional surrender. That decision, now solemnly recorded as the core of Allied policy, the free peoples must endorse. In those plans they can be relied upon to co-operate.