SIR JOHN SIMON DEFENDS BRITISH POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1938, Page 7

SIR JOHN SIMON DEFENDS BRITISH POLICY

Causes of Friction with Italy Removed WISDOM SHOWN BY MR CHAMBERLAIN (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 30. Sir John Simon, British Home Secretary, speaking at a National Government demonstration, said that, as a result of Mr Chamberlain’s letter to Mussolini last July, a new opportunity for reducing the most dangerous state of tension between the Italian people and the British people was made, and that, after months of patient negotiation, an agreement had been reached which removed many causes of friction and was recognised all over the world to be a contribution toward peace. This agreement, said Sir John, did not involve any approval of Italy s invasion of Abyssinia and it no more implied that Mr Chamberlain had any sympathy with Fascism than it implied that Mussolini had any sympathy with democracy. The way to peace was not to be found by ranging the nations of the world into opposing teams, determined to resist one another to the death. It was to be found by seeking out the causes of quarrels and misunderstandings and trying to remove them. That was the course which Mr Chamberlain had been taking. Lord Samuel, continued Sir John, had wisely declared the other day that Mr Chamberlain had made an absolutely right choice. Sir John added that Mr Chamberlain had showed profound wisdom and this fact should be accepted by the whole nation, irrespective of p.arty. He sometimes heard reproaches concerning the course which the Government had followed in the Far East in 1932. The course adopted was taken throughout in co-operation with the League as a whole—so much so that Japan resigned from the League in resentment. But if he had anything to do with saving his country at that time, when the Singapore dock was not finished and when we might have had to face single-handed the responsibility for the disaster of war, he was well content to bear these reproaches. Sir John repudiated altogether the outlook which said that war was inevitable, that certain countries were bound to be our enemies and that all we had to do was to try to keep them as powerless and as weak as we could. He would rather hold to the view that, if we did out utmost to remove the causes that might 1 lead to war, and tried to meet our difficulties from whatever quarter they arose, in a fair manner, war was not inevitable. The influence of Britain should be thrown in on the side of peace.