SOUND FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 106, 9 May 1946, Page 5

SOUND FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA

REAL BASIS OF PEACE MR. CHURCHILL'S VIEW London, May 7. Receiving the freedom of the City of Westminster, Mr. Churchill, in a speech, touched on many current problems. He asked what would happen if the United Nations were sundered by an awful seism, if with all our endeavours we could build only a Tower of Babel, and what would happen if lhe world was faced by two irrecon[cilably opposed conceptions of human ‘society? Failure to find the answers might lead the whole of the human race into a new period of misery, slaughter and abasement. Supreme hope lay in reaching a good, faithful understanding with Russia through the agency and organism of the United Nations. The Englishspeaking world and the western democracies in Europe must, in this endeavour, move together. Only thus could catastrophe be avoided. After likening life to a boomerang with its cause and effect, Mr. Churchill said we might note how some actions of our Russian friends helped to cement Anglo-American friendship and co-operation, and how the activities of the French Communist Party had given Franco a new lease of life. We must all be conscious of our place in the world, which would perhaps finally be decided by what would happen in the next few years. "It would be a profound shock to the mass of the British people if they woke up one morning and found our Empire and position in the East and Middle East had vanished overnight,” he said. “If a mission we have faithfully discharged in so many lands came to.an abrupt collapse—if such a disaster occurred—we should certainly have the right to reproach all public men in any way responsible for such a failure of duty.”