POSITIVE POLICY OF PEACE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21127, 29 August 1938, Page 7

POSITIVE POLICY OF PEACE

BRITAIN’S ATTITUDE IN EUROPE

INEVITABILITY OF WAR NOT ACCEPTED

British Official Wireless (Received August 28, 6.30 p.m.) RUGBY, August 27. “There is no need to stress the importance of finding a peaceful solution of the problems confronting Central Europe,” declared the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Simon) in a speech at Lanark, in which he defined Britain’s foreign policy as a positive policy of peace, and he repudiated the attitude that accepted the inevitability of war. Sir John Simon said that in the modern world there were no limits to the reactions to war. The very case of Czecho-Slovakia may be so critical for the future of Europe that it would be impossible to assume a limit to the disturbance which a conflict might involve, and everyone in every country, who considers the consequences, has to bear that in mind. They would all have read the striking speech made the other day by Mr Cordell Hull (Secretary of State for the United States), which laid stress on the widespread reactions of war, and on the necessity for substituting, for the use of force in international relations, methods of friendly co-operation. What Mr Cordell Hull had said, and what President Roosevelt said a few days later, in Canada, must have awakened a responsive echo in many British hearts. Concluding his speech, Sir John Simon said: I believe that just as the people of this country have a deep and abiding love of peace, and a corresponding hatred of war, so have the people of all other nations. I believe that everywhere the “Man in the Street” desires to lead his life in an atmosphere of quietude and security, looking forward to the enjoyment for himself and his children of the good things of life, and hating and dreading the awful consequences which modern war brings upon all alike.