INFLUENCE FOR PEACE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 44, 20 January 1938, Page 9

INFLUENCE FOR PEACE

BRITISH EMPIRE’S PLACE. TWO LINES OF POLICY. VIEWS OF ARCHBISHOP. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received January 20, 10.30 a.m. RUGBY, Jan. 19-

Presiding at the opening of the session of the Convocation of Canterbury the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Cosmo Gordon Lang) said that they could not contemplate the present world situation without grave anxiety and dismay. The war in China was giving a sinister warning of what any war on a wider scale would mean to civilisation.

In the midst of the confusion in tho world they could only hope that the British Commonwealth would prove an influence for peace and remain on terms of friendship with all the nations. There were obviously two lines of policy which ought to he followed: (1) To maintain and strengthen co-operation with the United States; (2) to do the utmost, while continuing, the established friendship with France, to reach a friendly understanding with Germany. The Archbishop said he w-anted to see a fuller and more generous recognition of the words of Herr Hitler about his desire to do all it was possible to do to maintain peace in Europe. But, at the same time, s he would reiterate his question to Germany of why she had alienated the sympathies of the people in Britain and other countries, who were most anxious to be on friendly terms with her by her continued acts of interference with the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches there. The Bishop of St. Albans said that an unofficial anti-God movement was working underground in England from the top of the scale to the bottom. It was extraordinarily polite, not possessing the vulgarity associated with Russia, but the Church must close its ranks and fight it.