LABOUR’S WAR AIMS

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21035, 10 February 1940, Page 6

LABOUR’S WAR AIMS

British Labour in the announcement of its war aims has given an effective answer to the few scattered through British countries who still insist that the masses of the people of the British Empire and of France are being dragooned into the present war, as they were in the last, against their own will and their own interest, by Capitalism or some other monster which as the result of constant propaganda has assumed false proportions in their minds. The declaration issued in London illustrates more clearly than any other circumstance the real unity of the people of Britain in the determination to fight and win the war with the consciousness of a good cause. . The declaration might, in fact, have been written by the executive of the most Conservative Party in Britain, except that it affirms opposition to the present Government and faith in its socialistic ideals —a difference of very minor importance when compared with the greater problem in hand. Labour is also prepared to go further in making promises with regard to colonial administration than the other parties in Britain have so far been prepared to go, but otherwise the declaration is almost a replica of statements made on many occasions by the British Government. What other conclusions can thinking Britons reach ? There is so little cleavage of opinion on the war aims that Britain does in fact speak with a united voice in the defence of democracy. Labour has discovered the same difficulty as the Government in setting down in precise terms a new order to be established when peace is won. So much may happen that it is impossible to envisage the state of affairs that will exist on that happy day, and it would be worse than useless now to construct a hard and fast scheme in detail which might have to be remodelled at the end of the war, and lead to false expectations. The essential thing is that everyone in Britain and France has a general picture in his mind of a condition of peace far more desirable to all people and far more equitable to the mass and to the individual than the state of terrorism that Nazidom has brought to the world. All are agreed that the Nazi power must be broken and that then goodwill will show the way to the new order. Planning there can be in advance—with necessary reservations.