GOLDEN AGE FOR THE WORLD

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 143, 13 March 1939, Page 9

GOLDEN AGE FOR THE WORLD

If Peace Could Be Assured

PLEA TO NATIONS’ LEADERS

Great Opportunity To Transform History

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, March 10.

The Home Secretary. Sir Samuel Hoare, in a speech in his constituency today, eloquently depicted the opportunity which lay before the leading statesmen of the world to create peace and prosperity.

He asked his audience to imagine the possible results of abolishing the political uncertainties which stood in the way of settled cooperation between the nations. “Suppose that political confidence could be restored in Europe,” he said. “Suppose that for the space of five years there were neither wars nor rumours of wars. Suppose that the peoples of Europe were able to free themselves from the nightmare that haunts them and from the expenditure on armaments that beggars them.

“Could we not then devote the almost incredible inventions and discoveries of our time to the cieation of a golden age in which poverty could be reduced to insignificance and the standard of living raised to heights we have never been able to attempt before? Here, indeed, is the greatest opportunity that has ever been offered to the leaders of the world.”

Defensive Rearmament.

He went on to stress the essentially defensive character of the rearmament of the democracies, and said: “Some people on the Continent are saying that we are building up great armaments for the purpose of attack and that we are marching toward war. Nothing is further from the truth. “We are doing no more than to raise our standard of defence to the point that has already been reached by the dictator countries, and we are raising it with extreme reluctance.” Sir Samuel Hoare declared that the new strength of the democracies would not make them blind or rigid to problems that called for remedy. They were as anxious as ever to remove the causes of war in the world.

"They believe, for instance,” he said, “that great progress might speedily .be secured if they could cut through the entanglements that now stifle trade and destroy friendly intercourse. “Five men in Europe—the three dictators and the Prime Ministers of England and France —if they worked with singleness of purpose and unity of action to this end, might in an ineredably short space of time transform the whole history of the world. “These five men, working together in Europe and blessed in their efforts by the President of the United States might make themselves eternal benefactors of the human race. Our own Prime Minister has shown his determination to work heart and soul to such an end. I cannot believe that the other leaders In Europe will not join him in the high endeavour upon which he is engaged.” Return of Confidence. Sir Samuel Hoare’s speech, to which this forceful appeal for the triumph of goodwill was a climax, began with a description of the return in recent months of a mood of confidence and resolution to people in Britian.

He commented on the astonishing freedom .with which all aspects of the country’s defence provisions were still discussed in the British Parliament and on the chance it afforded to all citizens to "realize how the huge sums, running to nearly £600,000,000 this year, which, were being spent On defence were now producing results. Statements on the defence estimates and recent debates had shown that the long period of preparation had come to an end, and that results were now emerging with remarkable effect. “They show, I am convinced, he said, that we could not be defeated in a short war by any knock-out blow, and that in a long war our almost inexhaustible resources would ensure final victory. These conclusions are of incalculable importance not only to us, but to every country that is bent upon peace. Democracies’ Solidarity. “There is another fact which has emerged in recent weeks. It is the solidarity of the effort in the three great democracies. At the end of the year there were many foolish people who went about saying that the democracies were effete. Few say so today, and none will say so tomorrow. “For the great rearmament programmes in the British Commonwealth, France, and the United States are much more than the repair of gaps in the national defences. They are outward and visible signs of the strength and vigour of the three countries and of their unshakable resolution to ward off a-ttack on their historic liljprties. “Never in our memory has there been so fundamental a unity or so firm a resolve in all three democracies, each differing from the other in almost every respect and each forming its conclusions in its own way, but all three inevitably impelled upon the same programme of national defence. “Between the British and French democracies there have been forged specially close bonds of common interest. They are both in Europe, and European dangers have encompassed them. America’s Position. “America is in a different position. It is out of Europe and does not wish to be drawn into European entanglements. It has its own problems to solve, and does not want, them to be compromised by foreign obligations. We realize these differences and accept them, and we should be both meddlesome and foolish if we attempted to run counter with them. American democracy will go its own way and no one here will try to deflect it. “But that is not a significant fact at the moment. The significant fact is the simultaneous rejuvenescence of democratic -strength in each of the three great democracies, not least in the American, and the equal determination of all three to resist, and resist victoriously, any and every attack upon its (life and ijhsrty.”