“WHAT KIND OF WORLD CAN WE MAKE THIS?”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 270, 15 November 1945, Page 6

“WHAT KIND OF WORLD CAN WE MAKE THIS?”

MR. ATTLEE’S BASIC QUESTION ADDRESS TO AMERICAN CONGRESS Reed. I) p.m. Washington, Nov. 13. ‘‘To-day the United States stands out as the mightiest. Power on earth, yet is a threat to no one,” said Mr. Attlee (British Prime Minister), addressing a joint session of Congress. “All know that she will never use her power for selfish aims or territorial aggrandisement. We look upon her forces as our own forces and those of other nations as instruments that must never be employed except in the interest of world security, and for the repression of an aggressor. “We have gone through a horrible, destructive war. You have lost great numbers of the flower of your young men, so have we in Britain, and so have all the countries engaged in the great struggle, but you have been spared the destruction of your great cities. You have no spectacle of hundreds of thousands of broken homes, and you have had no great masses of people driven from their habitations, wandering about, seeking somewhere to lay their heads. You have had no work of centuries of human endeavour destroyed in a few short hours by air attacks, but we know you are fully conscious of the tragic folly of war. There was a time when we in Britain enjoyed the same immunity. Wars might devastate the Continent, but we were safe behind our moat, the invoilable sea. Those days are past. Defensive frontiers, mountain barriers, seas, even oceans, are now no obstacle to attacks. The old discontinuity of earth and sea has been replaced, by the continuity of air. If not now, then in a few years devastating weapons which at present are being developed may menace every part of the world.

“It is in the light of these facts, and particularly in the terrible light of the atomic bomb, that I have entered into discussion with Mr. Truman in order that we may get together with all nations of the world to consider what kind of world it is necessary to have if civilisation is to endure, and if lhe common man of all lands is to feel secure,” added Mr. Attlee. “But in facing world problems it is a great mistake tn think constantly of war and the prevention of war. We have to think rather of the best means of building up peace. Speaking in London last week, I said the foundation of peace lay in the hearts of men. I said it is true that the more the citizens of the world can get to know each other, the less likely are we to have an emotional condition in which war is possible.

“I hold that the United Nations Organisation must be something more than an agreement between governments; it must be an expression of the will of the common people in every country.

“Perhaps I might assist to-day in removing some misapprehensions. I come before you as a representative of Great Britain, but also as a Party Leader. I wonder how much you know about the British Labour Party? We have not always been very well informed on me politics of other countries, and I doubt in fact whether very many British citizens knew the exact defference between Republican and Democrat. FREEDOM-LOVING LABOUR PARTY “You have heard that we are Socialists. but I wonder just wnat that means to you? I think some people here imagine Socialists are out to destroy the freedom of the individual, of speech, religion, and the Press. That is wrong. The Labour Party is in a tradition of freedom-loving movements which have always existed in our country, but freedom must be striven for in every generation, anti those who threaten it are not always the same. Sometimes the battle for freedom has had to be fought against kings, against religious tyranny, against the power of owners of land and against, the overwhelming strength of monied interests. We in the Labour Party declare that we are in line with those who fought for Magna Charta, and habeas corpus, with the Pilgrim Fathers, and with signatories of the Declaration of Independence. We believe in the freedom of the individual to live his own life, but that freedom is conditioned by his not cramping the freedom of his fellow men.' There is always, and always will be scope lor enterprise, but when big business gets too powerful so that it becomes monopolistic, we hold it is unsafe to leave it in private hands.

PLANNED ECONOMICS “We believe, as do most people in Britain, that one must plan the economic activities of the country if we are to assure the common man a fair deal. You may think the Labour Party consists solely of wage earners. It is our pride that we draw a majority of members from the ranks of the wage earners, but our Party 10-day is drawn from all classes of society, professional men and and what are sometimes called the privileged clas es. “The ‘old school tie’ can still be •seen on the Government benches. It is really a good cross section of the population. “Asking, what is our attitude towards foreign affairs?” Mr. Attlee said: “We heek to raise rne standard of life of our people, and we can only do so by trading with the rest

of the world, and as good traders we wish to have prosperous customers. The advance in methods of production, so strongly exemplified in the United States, has resulted in an immense output of goods and commodities of all kinds. We show the same results on a smaller scale, yet there are hundreds ol millions 01 people living in the world at a standard of life which is the same as they have had for a 1000 years. There is ample room in the world for the products of great industrial nations like ours to raise the general levels throughout the world. We, like you, believe in an expansive economy and can see no reason why. the need being so, there should be any undue rivalry between us.” FOUNDATIONS OF PEACE

“We believe that the foundations oi peace must be world prosperity and good neighbourliness. That is where science has placed such potential abundance before the human race. We should collaborate to take advantage of it rather than scram Die and fight for larger individual shares, which only results in an immense increase in poverty.

“Any man in Britain returning from the war finds his home blitzed and his business ruined. He has to start afresh, and it is a tough proposition. As a country we are just like that man. We went all out to win the war and now we have to start afresh. Like him, we are facing the future with courage and determination to win through. We have not stood up to our enemies for six years to be beaten by economics. I look forward to an era of increasing British and American co-operation and friendship —not as being an exclusive friendship, but a contribution to knitting together with peoples through the United Nation.-, Organisation in bonds of peace. In our internal policies each will follow the course decided by the people’s will. Ynn win see us embarking on projects of nationalisation and wide, all-embracing schemes of social insurance, designed to give security to the common man. We shall be working out a planned economy. You, it may be, will continue in vour more individualistic methods. It is more important tha we should understand each other and other nations whose institutions differ from ours.

DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES “In the British Commonwealth and Empire we offer an example of many nations, some of which have reached and others are approaching full selfgovernment. Even, the during war India was given an opportunity of taking complete charge of her own effort, and in the Colonial Empire we have eight or nine new constitutions which have been adopted or are being worked out, all based on an extension of democratic principles. “I hope there will be ever closer friendship between our great democracies. We have much in common, we have memories ot a comradeship in a great adventure, and above all things we share the things of the spirit both our nations hold dear—the rule of law, our conception of freedom, the principles and method of democracy and, most vital of all, we acknowledge lhe validity of moral precepts upon which * our whole civilisation is founded. Man’s material discoveries have out paced his moral progress, and the greatest task facing us to-day is to bring home to all people, before it is too lale, that our civilisation can only survive by acceptance of the practice in international relations and in our national life of Christian principles.”