BASELESS ACCUSATIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26619, 15 November 1947, Page 8

BASELESS ACCUSATIONS

SOVIET PRESS CRITICISM EMPIRE’S CONTRIBUTION TO WORLD SECURITY LONDON, Nov. 13. A protest against the “ constant stream of abuse in the press of Russia directed against the British Commonwealth and Empire ” was made by Ml Clement Attlee in his speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet. Peoples and Governments have been abused as war-mongers and even traitors. The facts were enough to show how baseless were the accusations. Mr Ernest Bevin and his colleagues had striven to promote world peace and prosperity. The Commonwealth of Nations shared the belief that the best hope for world peace was the establishment of a community of free nations cooperating in the common interests, he said. “We in the Commonwealth are putting into practice the principles in which we believe and showing the world how freedom and association in a wider policy can be combined. If there is imperialism in the world today—l mean subjection to other peoples—it is not to be found in the Commonwealth,” he said. A people who could, after the trials of war, display qualities shown in “ this remarkable association ” had no need to fear the future, he continued Mr Attlee denied some of the wilder things being said about Britain abroad. It was untrue that Britons had lost the capacity for work, or a pride in work. Mr Attlee gave examples to show that the production in many industries was higher than pre-war. Steel production was 266,000 tons a week, compared with 200 000 tons prewar. ' The monthly output of commercial vehicles had nearly doubled, and agricultural tractors quadrupled. The volume of goods exported was 113 per cent, of the 1938 volume. The truth was not that efforts had declined but that requirements had become so much greater. *