WORLD ISSUES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26113, 28 March 1946, Page 6

WORLD ISSUES

PROSPECTS FOR PEACE PRIME MINISTER’S SURVEY FRANK APPROACH NECESSARY (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, Mar. 27. “ The world is a dangerous place to-day, but it has great possibilities for peace and nrogress,’’ said the Prime Minister, M"r P. Fraser, speaking at the opening of the Municipal Conference to-day. Mr Fraser said that he believed that by a free and frank approach world problems could be solved by insistence on the application of democratic principles. If those principles were not followed then the world would be at the mercy of the terrible discoveries of science—for the moment the atomic bomb, but holding the possibility of other horrors. Only through conciliation, tolerance, and accommodation to the views of others and mutual understanding could these horrors be avoided.

“ Any Government which may be in power in New Zealand has a responsibility to understand and support those who in the international councils are standing for justice and democracy,” Mr Fraser said. “ New Zealand’s national life is based on the principles of freedom and democracy, and as economic security and social progress advance the cause of freedom the Dominion will become all the greater.” Mr Fraser said he wished that the comradeships sealed by blood on the battlefield could have remained unimpaired in the days of peace. He believed that ultimately these relations would be reestablished. While the constitution of the United Nations had what appeared to him to be some undemocratic defects, and some glaring ones, he continued, the organisation was the only hope for mankind. The world had to choose between the rule of those who would seek to impose an evil domination or of working together for the common good. The only way in which that could be achieved was through the .United Nations Organisation. Mr Fraser referred to the coming world and empire conferences, adding that Britain had shown that she stood for peace and justice, and the conference, he believed, would show the Empire’s friendly intentions to the world. He referred to the recent offer of Mr Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary, of a 50-year pact of friendship with the Soviet Union. That offer, he said, sprang from the British people who only wanted to see differences cleared away. It did not mean, however, that any country or commonwealth would have to be subservient to or subscribe to-doctrines in which it did not believe.