NOT VINDICTIVE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20108, 30 November 1939, Page 7

NOT VINDICTIVE

ALLIED WISHES NEW WORLD SOUGHT BRITISH ASSURANCES LEADERS IN HOUSE PROBLEM FOR ALL (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Nov. 29, 2.40 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 28. After reviewing the progress of the war the Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, in his speech in the House of Commons to-day, said that the peace aim to be achieved when the war'was over could not be laid down by Britain alone. “The Dominions and Allies, and possibly the vanquished, must be consulted before it can be decided how a new and better world could be laid out," he said. “We have not entered the war vindictively and we do not intend to impose a vindictive peace, but the condition in which Europe has been kept for so long by Germany’s •policy has made it impossible to progress in the building of a better world or to carry out the schemes of improvement which forced Britain and the Allies to take up arms. The conditions for achieving our peace alms cannot now be foreseen." None know how long the war would last, nor how it would develop, nor who, when it ended, would be standing by our side and who would be against us. It would not only be futile but mischievous to attempt to lay down conditions under which the ne'w world could be created. Labour Leader’s View The Leader of the Opposition. Major C. R. Attlee, emphasised the importance of looking beyond the immediate victory. He declared that a new order of international democracy should be planned in which the rights of all .nations, radial, cultural and religious and of minorities would be respected. Aggression should be abondoned and also the spirit of absolute sovereignty and imperialism, and disinterested arbitration should bn accepted with the recognition of international authority with power to enforce the decisions.

Mr. Chamberlain pointed out that Major Attlee, in saying that imperialism must be abandoned, had not defined imperialism and had not indicated what country he had in mind as practising imperialism to-day.

Prime Minister Replies

“I do not know what he means, but if imperialism means an assertion of racial superiority and the suppression of political and economic freedom of other peoples and the exploitation of other countries for the benefit of an imperialist country, then these are not the characteristics of this country, but are characteristic of the present administration in Germany,” said Mr. Chamberlain. •‘We have no thought of treating the British Empire-on such lines. The administration of the Colonial Empire is a trust to be conducted primarily in'the interests of the peoples of the countries concerned.” The Liberal Leader, Sir Archibald Sinclair, declared that the total of 1,500,000 unemployed three months after the outbreak of war was evidence of the Government’s failure to fully use the resources. He requested a two-day secret session.