NO AMBIGUITY THIS TIME

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 August 1939, Page 5

NO AMBIGUITY THIS TIME

GREAT BRITAIN'S ATTITUDE. Twenty-five years ago—we have just passed its anniversary —a political outrage in a relatively obscure town in Eastern Europe set in train a series of diplomatic manoeuvres which ended in a four years’ carnage, says the “Daily Telegraph.” Historians have long ceased to assign to one man or even to one country alone the slow descent into the maelstrom which nation after nation made during the summer weeks of 1914, but there is fair evidence —if not conclusive—that the landslide might have been prevented had the minds which directed Berlin and Vienna been certain that Britainwould be drawn into the massed combat. Germany refused to believe the despatches of her able representative in London. Prince Lichnowsky. repeatedly warning her that Britain could not bo isolated, as the German war party hoped, from a general European conflict. The indefiniteness of Britain's pledges, the divisions of opinion in the 1914 Cabinet the sharp internal strife in the country over Home Rule, all gave some colour to the hopes of those Germans who believed in an isolationist Britain. Today Britain is a prey to no internal strife; she had made not a vague Entente, but definite pledges on a wider scale than even before. Nor are her political leaders divided today in mind on the extent of her responsibilities or on the country’s willingness to face warfare if war should come. Lord Halifax has been able to deliver just such a definite warning as Sir Edward Grey could not give in July. 1914. There can be no doubt, no ambiguity, no misunderstanding.