LAWLESS AGGRESSION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 December 1939, Page 8

LAWLESS AGGRESSION

BRITISH LABOUR’S STAND. “The Labour Party considers it essential that lawless aggression should be stopped." said Mr C. R. Attlee, leader of the British Labour Party, in a broadcast talk. “Unless this is done, there is no possibility of creating an enduring peace. That is why the Labour Party is taking its full share in the fight against Hitlerism. It is not fighting for domination or Imperial interests, but for the indispensable conditions for a peaceful world, in which all nations can develop without, harming others. It wants the nations to be able to live together like good neighbours. Hitlerism challenges this conception. It sets up the rule of force and knows no other law than the will of the dictator, but it does more than this. It destroys the foundations of civilisation. In our ordinary life we are able to carry on because most people can be relied upon to keep their word, and behave like good citizens. Hitlerism cares nothing for good faith. Hitlerism denies all rights of the individual. It destroys everywhere the rights of free speech, of conscience and of citizenship. It spurns all the spiritual values which we hold dear, and substitutes for them blind obedience to the will of a dictator. It runs counter to everything for which the British people stand. More than this, it is opposed to all that is best in our Western civilisation, which has been built up cn the precepts of Christianity and on the splendid heritage of the great thinkers of the past of all countries. to which Germans have made so rich a contribution. The Labour Party, then, in taking its stand against Hitlerism, is defending civilisation against barbarism. It is seeking to preserve the heritage of the past and the hopes of the future."