PERFECTLY CLEAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 2, 3 July 1939, Page 9

PERFECTLY CLEAR

BRITISH POLICY

ASSURANCE TO POLAND

(British Official Wireless.) ItUGBY, July 1. While alarmist speculations regarding Danzig are discounted and deprecated in London, official quarters have made clear that the situation is being closely and continuously watched in consultation with the French Government. . / The French Cabinet held a meeting today at which, it is understood, the position was reviewed. Neither in Paris nor in London, however, do the events which are known to have occurred, nor. developments which are forecast—with or without foundation in the reports from abroad —call for any new decision. So far as the British Government is concerned, its attitude was defined clearly and definitely in Mr. Chamberlain's declaration on March 31 that, "in the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with the national forces, his Majesty's Government would fe^l itself bound at once to lend the Polish Government all the support in its power." The only concern in official circles here at the present time is that the unequivocal definition of the British commitments and British intentions should not be forgotten in any quarter. " WARNING EMPHASISED. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon, referred to the international situation, in a speech in Sheffield. "The situation is serious— even grave—but I have no new declaration to make," he said. "Lord Halifax on Thursday spoke not only for the British Government but for the British people, and also for a large part of the world outside the British Commonwealth. His statement was unprovocative but firm and clear. "There are States great and powerful which have been built up on the basis of a belief—and which proclaim the belief—that democracy is bound to be weak and that strength can be shown only by peoples which submit to orders from above. But there is unity and strength of purpose and comradeship in the British Constitution and its freedom to the individual which cannot be found under any other form of Government. In the days before us, however difficult they may Toe, it will be our special mission to prove that again to the whole world."