LABOUR'S WAR AIMS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 157, 8 May 1940, Page 6

LABOUR'S WAR AIMS

GENERAL ELECTION UNLIKELY WHAT OF THE PEACE TO COME? It is unlikely a general lection Will be held in Britain during the war, but it is almost certain that one would be held before the meeting of a Peacc Conference. A general election followed the Armistice of 1918 and preceded the Peace Conifcrcnce at Versailles. Replacement of the present British Government by a Labour Government may be unlikely, but it is at least a possibility. Thus it is a matter of more than academic interest to ask what would happen to the peace if the making of it were entrusted to leaders of the Labour Party, says the Christian Science Monitor. To the Allies and friends of Great Britain it is reassuring to know that the broad policy of the Labour Party on the question of resettlement is in essentials the same as that of the present Government. In its manifesto on "The War and the Peace," there is not a word which contradicts the peace declarations of Mr Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, and Lord Halifax, Foreign Secretary. It even goes further than Mr Chamberlain when it says that an association of States should be formed around the nucleus provided by war-time cooperation of Britain and France, that it should have a collective authority transcending the sovereign rights of separate States,, and must control military and economic power to enforce peaceful behaviour as between its members and secure armament reduction. A NEW STATUS "In any case," points out the Glasgow Herald, "the neutrals must give very serious consideration to their status in the new Europe that will arise after the war. If Germany wins the neutrals' fate will be in no doubt. But if the Allies win without the neutrals' help. what voice in the affairs of Europe do the neutrals expect to claim? Can they hope to have the right, if they have not earned it, to take a share in planning the new Europe? Will it be by the efforts of the Allies alone, or of all nations that share their ideals but not as yet their perils uul repsonsibilities, that despair is banished from the great cities of Warsaw, of Prague and of Vienna?"