FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 November 1939, Page 6

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE TO HITLERISM. “Self-defence is a good motive for fighting, but there arc many of us who would not support the war if we believed we were only fighting to maintain the great wealth of the British Empire. We are not fighting for that.” said Mr Vernon Bartlett, M.P., speaking in the House of Commons. “We are not fighting for any motive of hatred. We are not fighting to crush Germany, and we are not fighting for the preservation of any class or even any social system. We are fighting because we can see no other way of preventing the utter destruction of those freedoms which our ancestors have gained and treasured for us, but those freedoms will be destroyed unless we can convince the mass of people in every country that we really are fighting their battle. The Prime Minister has said that we must destroy Hitlerism. The only possible alternative to Hitlerism is international law. We should make this war a crusade, and the more we make it a crusade the quicker we shall win it. After the last war we made an attempt to build up a new world order, and we certainly’ went nearer to it than mankind had ever gone before. Let us not be ashamed of that, but let us be rather proud of what we did. The utter futility of war as an instrument of policy is much more widely recognised than in 1914. There are today far more people in the world determined to build up a method of replacing war. We who want to destroy Hitlerism want to destroy the doctrine that might is right.”