IN PEACE AND IN WAR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 65, 15 June 1942, Page 4

IN PEACE AND IN WAR

TWO years ago when the Empire press was throwing the invective of bitterness upon the Soviet Union for the parti-* tioning of helpless Poland and the hypocritical alliance engineered by the sphinx-faced Ribbontrop, it would have been possible for any person in Whakatane to venture a substantial wager that ultimately this nation of ours would conclude a twenty-year pact of mutual cooperation and friendship with Russia, and> find no one willing to take him seriously. But the miracle has happened and what is more the fighting men of martyred Poland have actually joined forces, with their Soviet conquerers and are combining to throw the hated German invaders from their loved fatherland. This unbelievable reversion of attitude by the slowacting British nation was made possible: overnight by one man—Churchill. Here we had a man, an intense radical,, who was big enough to change his opinion and who was courageous enough to broadcast his new convictions to. the nation v Knowing Churchill, we know also that the great decision he made was in no way shaded with hypocracy. The. seeds which he had sown twelve months ago have grown into sturdy and fast maturing ties of friendship and understanding which had been prevented for twenty years by high collared capitalism and, we must now ad.mit—very cleverly couched propaganda. Naturally we know the history of the Soviet rise to power is not without bleamish ! Is our own ? But it stands to reason that we can learn much from a nation which from a shambles of revolution rose in twenty years to be the only power strong enough on the European mainland to buttress the victory-mad masses of Hitler's creation. There is a spirit of intense loyalty amongst the Russians to-day which was absent in the same peoples under the Czarist regime. Fear of the knout, is absent to-day—yet the war effort is a hundred times more intense. Here is something that compels our admiration and beats down our inborn conservatism. We feel to-day that we are only just beginning to know the people, of the Soviet. They have with us a common objective in the destruction of Naziism, but the momentous treaty of last week ties us even closer in peace and in war, for a period of twenty years. The American endorsement makes for a new triple alliance which can be acclaimed the most powerful in the world. It is only a matter of time and the fourth great power—China, will also become a signatory. No greater rebuff could be offered the Axis at this moment than this newly executed pact of agreement, and the reaction must certainly add to the drabness of their outlook—particularly to Japan.