WAR TO THE END

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 113, 11 April 1940, Page 7

WAR TO THE END

ALLIES DETERMINED. HITLER’S MOTIVE. INTERNAL STRIFE LIKELY. (United Press Association—Ry Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received April 11, 12.40 p.m. RUGBY, April 10. The Foreign Secretary (Lord Halifax) was the speaker at a luncheon to-day in the series which have been addressed by various Ministers on the country’s war effort. lie dealt with the deeper causes of the conflict and the wider aims of the Allies. He began, however, with a reference to recent developments. The situation, he said, was obscure, but it was clear that the whole of Denmark had been occupied by German troops. Norway had been attacked and part of her territory occupied. Norway had been assured by the Allies of full aid and that they would fight the war to its end in association with her. Regarding the report that Norway was prepared to negotiate with the German Government, Lord Halifax said: "I do not know whether the report is well founded, but if it were well founded I have no doubt whatever that the Allied Governments would only regard that action as taken under duress, and that it would in no way whatever affect our determination to resist, on behalf of a powerless Norway, both the effect for Norway of this brutal exhibition of violence and for ourselves the extension of German strategic power on the North Sea and the Atlantic, which would be impossible for this country to accept.” After assuring his audience that the powerful British naval forces operating in the waters adjacent to Norway were not idle, though he could not yet reveal anything. Lord Halifax went on to try to discover, the motive of opening up the war in Scandinavia. He thought it might well be the result of some internal weakness in Germany of which in Britain they were not perhaps wholly aware. Certainly it was not likely to be of unmixed advantage to Germany. NEUTRAL INDECISION. Lord Halifax said that these events were of a kind which were liable to happen if neutral States were not prepared to ask in time for the help they so often asked for when it was all too late to render it effectively, and if they did not realise in time that in a world where German assurances proved worthless it was to their ultimate and essential interest to stand together. Recalling the non-aggression - pact with Denmark, which was valid for ten years and was signed only ten months ago, and that Norway had gone very far to accommodate Germany, he emphasised that it was now clear that neither non-aggression pacts nor the absence of provocation were of the least avail against Germany if German policy demanded otherwise. PLANNED IN ADVANCE. Lord Halifax strongly denied, and cited the Norwegian foreign Minister (Professor Koht) in support of his denial, of the German assertion that the Allies intended to occupy Norway. He insisted, too, that the German preparations were so elaborate as to prove that the operation was planned in advance of the Allied minelaying, which the Nazis claimed provoked it, and added that even viewed as having been provoked by the Allied measures in Norwegian waters, world opinion would recognise as an unreasonable reprisal an action of which the minimum purport was the destruction of! the independence of two more countries. I

The truth was that in the face of this kind of action of Germany no country which was not in a position io defend itself was safe.

If anything had been required to stiffen the British and French resolution then Germany’s new “mad dog act” would have supplied it by making plain once more that on the issue of the war hung the fate not only of the States actually at war, but of all States who loved liberty and wished to pieserve their independence. These events must also, he believed, have extinguished the last hopes oi those few who had not before entirely despaired of the Nazi Government proving willing to co-operate to find a basis for a reasonable peace. “There is no one so far as I know in this country or France who wants the war to continue for an unnecessary day, but if we are to judge by the plain facts wc must conclude that even before tin's latest outrage the people were deceiving themselves who thought that the present German Government would ever be disposed to make the kind of peace that could be justified before the conscience of the world,” he added.

Dealing further with the Allied aims, he said there was nothing either to dishonour or impair the self-respect of a Germany prepared to take her place in good faith in the European family of nations, and to extend to others the same right to live that she claimed for herself, and no longer so acting, either within or without Germany, as to dishonour the German name and make the word of the German Government something the world could not trust.

“HIDEOUS PHILOSOPHY.” “While Nazism reigns it is plain wc are fighting a new and very hideous philosophy which repudiates every principle that underlies civilisation as we know it, and which has been imposed on a great people under the cloak of national renaissance by a gang of men completely devoid of scruples and imbued with a profound lust of power,” said Lord Halifax.

“They have been engaged in turning the Germans into machines and in eliminating all the humane qualities fostered by the family and by the Christian Church, and that seems to me to be precisely the mentality of the great destroyers in history that emerged from the areas of Europe imper-

vious to the civilising influence of Rome.”

On the other hand the Allies stood for a positive creative force and for the defence of values without which there was no hope of human progress. AH the energies and efforts of Britain and France were being increasingly directed without stint to one end—-victory-—and in Lord Halifax’s judgment the mighty machine thus being created must in the end prove irresistible. RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA.

Passing references occurred in his speech to the consultations at the Foreign Office on the Balkan situation and to Russia. The relations with Russia must, considered the Foreign Secretary, be thought of not solely against the background of the Soviet’s wanton attacks on Poland and Finland, but rather in the light, of what must remain the Allies’ principal objective, namely, the defeat of Germany. It followed 'that the future of those relations must depend and ought to more than anything else upon the degree of effective help that Russia might for whatever reason wish to give Germany.

Regarding South-Eastern Europe, he said he need not emphasise the abiding interest of the Allies in those countries or their desire to see them preserve their liberty. MAKING THE PEACE.

Lord Halifax impressed on his audience the far-reaching significance of the declaration after the sixth meeting of the Supreme War Council by which the British and French Governments undertook to continue joint action after the war to effect the reconstruction of a.n international order ensuring liberty, respect for law and peace. He said the history of the last 20 years might have been different if a similar undertaking had. been given after the last war. He envisaged the great conception behind the Anglo-French cooperation.

“We have between our nations a living union,” he* added. “Here I think and trust may be found a solid foundation built on rock and not built upon sand from which may spring true collective security, and I hope others, like minded with France and ourselves upon the elements of European life, will be led to join what is becoming a close partnership for our mutual benefit and mutual protection.”