POLICY DEFENDED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 21051, 1 June 1938, Page 9

POLICY DEFENDED

RESTORING PEACE IN EUROPE Dangerous Tension Eased STATEMENT BY SIR JOHN SIMON Mr Chamberlain’s Work Praised British Official Wireless (Received May 31, 6.30 pan.) RUGBY, May 30. ’ Tlie Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon, speaking at a National Government demonstration, said that as the result of Mr Neville Chamberlain's letter to Signor Mussolini in July, ' the road was opened for a new opportunity for reducing the most dangerous state of tension between the Italian people and ourselves, and after months of patient negotiation, an agreement had been reached which removed many causes of friction. This was recognised all over the world to be a contribution towards peace. This agreement did not involve any approval of Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia, and it no more implied that Mr Chamberlain had any sympathy with Fascism than it implied that Signor Mussolini had any sympathy with democracy. The way to peace was not to be found by ranting the nations of the world into opposing teams, determined to resist one another to the death. It was to be found by seeking out the cause of quarrels and misunderstandings and trying to remove them, and that was the course which Mr Chamberlain had been taking. Lord Samuel had wisely declared the other day that Mr Chamberlain had made absolutely the right choice. ’ Sir John Simon added that Mr Chamberlain had showed profound wisdom, and that his statement should be accepted by the nation irrespective of party. He sometimes heard reproaches for the course which the Government followed in the Far East in 1932. The course then adopted was taken throughout, in co-operation with the League of Nations as a whole—so much so that Japan resigned from the League in resentment. But if he had anything to do with saving his country at that time, when the Singapore Dock was not finished, and w’hen Britain might have had to face singlehanded the responsibility for the disaster of war, he was well content to bear these reproaches. “I repudiate altogether,” added Sir John, “the outlook which said war is inevitable, and that certain countries were bound to be and that all we had to do was to try to keep them as powerless and weak as we could. I would rather hold to the view,” he added, "that if we did our utmost to remove the causes that might lead to war and tried to meet in a fair manner the difficulties th;-t arose from whatever quarter they came war was not inevitable, and the influence of Britain should be thrown on the side of peace.”