CRUDE & BRUTAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 November 1939, Page 5

CRUDE & BRUTAL

THE EVILS OP HITLERISM MUST BE DESTROYED FOR THE COMMON GOOD OF MANKIND. DECLARATION BY BRITISH MINISTER. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY November 11. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Informat ion, Sir Edward Grigg, in a speech, said that Hitlerism, which they had pledged themselves Ip destroy, was something' much stronger and more penetrative than the mind. There would be no Hitler today if the German people were not sus--ceptible to crude and brutal leadership of the type he represented. There would be no Hitler today if there had not been in every German town and village a number of men ready and willing to inflict upon their own compatriots the awful cruellies and tyrannies which marked his regime. Evil things in . Germany at present dominated the good, and there was only one means by which that Satanic spirit in Germany could be destroyed, by the arbitrament to which it had itself appealed—the arbitrament of the sword. “Destroy it we must, and will, but what then?" he said. "The question is being asked all over the world. Britain has no territorial ambitions of any kind, and she has no desire to maintain a position of exclusive privilege, under which the great resources she commands will be denied to the rest of the world. "It is time, and more than time, that the nations of Europe regarded their civilisation in Europe and elsewhere as a common charge, and we want no exclusive control of the wealth of other continents for ourselves. “We seek no dictated peace, but peace by agreement, in which all peoples, including the German, will play their part. We seek peace which is guaranteed by general acceptance, not peace guaranteed by the strength of two or three dominant Powers, while other people remain weak and disarmed. There must be force behind all law, but the wider the consent on which the law is based the less the danger that force will have to be used. “The third principle is that we shall strive for the economic welfare not merely of the victorious countries, but of Europe as a whole. The greatest weakness of the Treaty of Versailles and sister treaties was their blindness to the economic needs of various new States, which they set up. States of Europe will. 1 hope, come to realise that, without co-operation on a scale unknown in the past, they cannot hope to be either safe or prosperous. We must strive to bring that about, by making every possible contribution tc the common good. “It is being said by Germany and Russia that we entered this war to maintain Imperialistic domination over Europe and other parts of the world. That is a lie. We want nothing but extending freedom, a higher standard of living, ample abundant life for our own people and lor all people.