FIGHT TILL VICTORY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 October 1940, Page 5

FIGHT TILL VICTORY

DECLARATION BY BELGIAN MINISTERS NO PEACE TREATY SIGNED TRIBUTES TO GREAT BRITAIN. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 3. Two Belgian Ministers broadcast to the Belgian people on the 8.8. C. Continental wavelength on Thursday evening. M. Gutt, the Finance Minister, spoke in French, and M. de Vleesehouwer broadcast in Flemish. Stating that they were speaking on the free radio from a free country, the Belgian Ministers said that M. Pierlot, the Belgian Prime Minister, speaking in France on July 21, had defined the position, but this definition was of the utmost importance to all Belgian people the French Government refused to allow either a broadcast or a communication to the Press. It was inevitable, the Ministers continued, that after four months of separation they and the Belgian people did not think alike on all points, but there were certain principles which were embodied in the programme of the Belgian Government on which all would agree. Giving this programme the Ministers said: — “Belgium is occupied by the German armies and the King is a prisoner. We are the only legal Belgian Government and the only Ministers appointed by the King. We want a free Belgium, and a free King. We want them to be completely and entirely free, as before August 4, 1914, and as before May 10, 1940. To achieve this aim we will fight - side by side with Britain till the final victory. “On May 10, 1940, Belgium was unjustifiably attacked. She took up arms and appealed to her guarantors. Since that date Belgium has not concluded any armistice or convention. Even less has she signed a peace treaty. Legally and effectively she is at war with Germany, who is in Belgian territory and is in fact applying war measures.” The Ministers said they were speaking from England, where they were “welcomed as brothers, where hearts beat in unison with ours, where our soldiers are already mounting guard, and where our daring airmen have volunteered to dispute their share of the glory in the victorious battle in the skies with all the champions of freedom and liberty.” They added that they were speaking “from the centre of London, the London that some of you may think is a heap of ruins.” The Ministers recounted how they had walked through wide thoroughfares, perhaps a little deafened by the noise of anti-aircraft guns, but without encountering any obstacles and without feeling that they ran any risk. Describing conditions in England, they said: “It is an atmosphere of intense industry, unflinching resolution. and reasoned confidence. The trial is severe, but it is the same as 25 years ago for Britain as for Belgium, and for both countries the stake is the same —independence to be preserved by one and restored by the other."