Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1942. A TREATY FOR WORLD ORDER.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 June 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1942. A TREATY FOR WORLD ORDER.

QOOD reasons appear lor believing that the Anglo-Russian Treaty, the conclusion of which was announced yesterday, and the understanding reached by the Soviet Government and the United States, represent in their combined and total effect one of the greatest, if not the greatest contributions yet made towards the winning of tlie war and of the peace that is to follow. At the most immediate view, this bold forward stride in collaboration between three great nations will be of tremendous moral and material effect, but it is even more important that the ultimate effect will be, as his Majesty the King has said in his message to the Soviet President, M. Kalinin, on the subject of the Anglo-Russian Treaty, “to the benefit not only of our two countries, but of all the world.” The admirable feature of this great act of international accord is that it excludes any aggrandisement of individual nations and equally any thought of establishing an exclusive and dominant group of nations. This is made manifest in Mr Eden’s statement in the House of Commons. The treaty, he said, confirms our alliance with Russia during the war and after. It provides that after the war our two countries will render each other mutual assistance against further attack by Germany or her associates. It further provides that we will collaborate with one another and with the other United Nations in the peace settlement and during the ensuing period of reconstruction, on the basis of the principles set out in the Atlantic Charter. Mr Eden said also that there were no secret engagements or commitments of any kind whatsoever and that the two governments declared their desire to unite with other like-minded governments in adopting proposals for common action to preserve peace and resist aggression. There is a distinction—in some* respects a very important distinction—to be drawn between the specific and binding treaty entered into by Britain and Russia and the “full understanding” reached between the Soviet Government and the Government of the United States on questions of war co-operation and “the fundamental problem of the security of freedom-loving peoples after the war.” The United States is not binding itself definitely to long-term co-operation in the same fashion as are Britain and Russia. Under its constitution the the United States probably is incapable of doing that. It may be believed, however, that the United States and all other freedom-loving nations will welcome the opportunity to assist in building on the foundations of international justice, order and security Britain and Russia have pledged themselves to lay. 1 Initially the value of these foundations depends on the faith the parties to the Anglo-Russia Treaty are able to repose in one another and upon the faith they inspire in other nations. It is a fact to be faced fairly, that there have been and are features in the development of Russian Communism which are not only condemned strongly by sections of opinion in the Eng-lish-speaking nations, but are repugnant to a large proportion of the rank and file of these nations. Neither Britons nor Americans have, in general, any love for dictatorship and extreme regimentation. It has been demonstrated most conclusively in a crucial test, however, that dictatorship is one tiling in Nazi Germany and in the territories of its enslaved associates and a totally different thing in Soviet Russia. No nation is. playing a more valiant or a more vital part than Russia in. the war to smash Hitlerism. That in itself makes her an ally splendidly worth having now and should mean that it will be possible to cooperate with her, for mutual benefit and for the good of all humanity, in years to come. It is to be remembered, too, that in the years between the last war and this war, Russia strove with * might, and main, but vainly, for the organisation of a common and active front against Hitlerism and the establishment of a system of collective security. Now, at what is possibly the climax of a great and desolating war, it is more’ than ever manifest that the continued existence of civilisation depends upon the establishment of a reign of law, maintained and enforced by the combined will and action of freedom-loving nations. It is in light of that demonstrated and commanding fact that the value of the’ AngloRussian Treaty and of the understanding between the Soviet Union and the United States is to. be assessed.