UNITED AT HEART

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 January 1939, Page 7

UNITED AT HEART

OUTLOOK OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE. “To be conscious of shortcomings is not to proclaim that we British are fainthearted, still less to suggest that we are decadent,” said Mr Anthony Eden in addressing the annual congress of American Industry of the National Association of Manufacturers at New York. ‘“Let me say this with all emphasis: I am convinced from my own experience of what men and women in Britain ■ are thinking and feeling today that the British people are just the same people as they have been in the greatest moments of their history; that they have the same beliefs, the same concaptions of life and society. The Great War and its aftermath have not shaken the fundamental faiths, nor undermined the qualities of our people. We do still care, deeply, strongly, and for the same things. It is quite true that we criticise one another sometimes; we have always done so, and I suppose we always shall. In itself this is no unhealthy sign in any free community, but this does not alter the fact that at heart we all want the same things, we all want to preserve our liberties, we all want freedom and security, not only for ourselves, but for our children. We all want peace, however much we may differ as to the method we think best to follow in order to win the common goal. There is a unity of outlook deeper than all the more superficial disunities of expression. What a nation has in common is what matters most. The still waters of community of outlook sometimes run so deep that they are less noticeable than the controversial ripples on the surface, but they matter more.”