SERIOUS PROBLEMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 August 1939, Page 5

SERIOUS PROBLEMS

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER’S SURVEY ENDEAVOUR TO UPHOLD PRINCIPLES. EMPHASIS ON EUROPEAN COMMITMENTS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, August 6. In the concluding passages of his statement on the Far Eastern position, the Prime Minister (Mr N. Chamberlain) said: “We have made it perfectly clear to the Japanese Government that we are not prepared to settle with the Japanese alone these questions of currency and silver. They can only be settled after consultation with other Governments who are as concerned as we are in the general question of the future position of silver and the currency. These matters are very closely allied. “I am not going to lay down here in a definite way, as Mr Baker asks me to do, what our attitude is to be. It would not be the proper way to begin consultation with the other interested parties. But I will go so far as to say this—that I do not take exception to what he has said as to the connection between the maintenance of the Chinese currency and the capacity of the Chinese to carry on guerrilla warfare in North China. "We have been compelled by force of circumstances to undertake very heavy commitments in Europe. The effect of them is that if certain things were to happen this country would have to go to war. It would be possible to undertake the same commitments in the Far East, but I do not want to do that. This a great and rich country inhabited by a population in high spirit, but there are limits to what it can do.

“However our feelings may be exasperated, therefore, by things happening in the Far East—and I can assure members that I fully share the most violent feelings anybody can have—it makes my blood boil to read of some of the things that have been happening there. But however much our emotions may be roused, let us not forget the liabilities we have already assumed nor the position of our fellowcountrymen and women already on the spot.

“I have tried to give the House an indication of the balance of considerations which we have to take account of in the Far East. We shall endeavour in continuing the negotiations, to preserve to the utmost extent principles which have hitherto governed our conduct there, and we shall preserve to the utmost extent the interests and fortunes of British subjects there. We shall endeavour to show patience and exercise reasonable moderation. - “Above all, let us not forget that we have graver and nearer problems to consider in the course of the next few months, and that we must conserve our forces to meet any emergency that may arise.”

Lord Samuel, speaking in the House of Lords, hinted that Australia was partly responsible for the British reluctance to adopt a stiffer attitude against Japan in the present negotiations.

“I trust.” he said, “that the Government and people of Australia will recognise that the policy of constant retreat is not one which is likely to succeed in the long run. It is inconsistent with the dignity and interests of the British Empire, and will result merely in loss of honour without buying security.