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Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21969, 22 May 1941, Page 4

“When yon have tried to write down peace aims as I have tried to do, you find that you have to think a good deal,” said Mr C. R. Attlee, the Lord Privy Seal, and British Labour leader, in a recent statement. “I do not think it is a thing that can be done in a moment. Remember, too, that it is one thing for private individuals to do so and another thing for a Government. A Government cannot be producing peace aims every fortnight or so. When you make a statement of peace aims it is on record, And, therefore, it requires great consideration. I entirely agree that a knowledge of the cause for which we are fighting is a vital weapon in this war, but that is not quite the same thing as a detailed picture of a post-war world. It is comparatively easy to lay down your peace aims in almost a sentence. Then you come to an intermediate stage when perhaps you can put down general principles. If you stop there, the complaint will be that you are very vague. If you go beyond that, you will find you are getting into details which you cannot have at this time, because you are trying to jug your hare before you have caught it. The Government have stated that there will be a declaration at the right time. I think that the people who are taking the responsibility have to judge when the time is opportune.’’

There is more to Britain than a brave and fighting island, writes Gordon Walker in the Christian Science Monitor. It is the “Aussies” who have reinforced Singapore—who stormed Bardia. Canadians guard Iceland. Hindu Jats, too, fortify Singapore, and Rhodesian pilots defend the skies of London. New Zealanders stand guard in Palestine. Uganda tribesmen swell the forces opposing the Italians in East Africa. They, like the Englishman who looked eastward from the Cliffs of Dover on the day of the fall of France, can say: “We fight alone —all 500,000,000 of us.” Theirs are the Canadian transport trucks which carried British troops across Africa, the 125,000,000 pairs of Indian-made boots on which Empire troops are marching. Theirs is the gold from South Africa, tin from Malaya, wheat from Australia, and a gift of 50,000 dollars from the tiny speck of an island called Banaba. This is Britain to-day. This is the Empire which in the past few months has taken on a new vigour and unity. Paced by Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand, it is funnelling into the common War chest an ever-broadening stream of guns and butter, men and materials, which is giving the British struggle a new momentum.