PLAIN STATEMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 January 1940, Page 5

PLAIN STATEMENT

OF ALLIED WAR AND PEACE AIMS ADVOCATED BY ARCHBISHOP OF YORK. METHODS AND PROCEDURE DISCUSSED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, January 22. Jn a broadcast today the Archbishop of York (.Most Rev Dr Temple) recalled that in bis previous talk in October in contrast, to the public mood in Germany he had described the British people’s war temper as one of dedication. Lofty as the claim was, the archbishop said, he thought it was true then and remained true today, though the two further war months had made a perceptible difference and he thought the existence of this difference suggested a need for certain steps to be taken if the dedication were to be maintained. He traced this difference in outlook in part to the unexpected turn the war had taken and in part to a growing feeling which he described as: "We know what we are fighting against. We don’t know what we are fighting for.” The conviction that even some years of war with all its horrors was better than a spread of Nazi tyranny had not lost hold of the British people's minds, and, though he thought it was clear that fighting against that tyranny was fighting for the checking of the war evil, there still remained a consuming interest in the question of how the opportunity created by the eventual victory could be used. He suggested that any doubts might be resolved by two statements. The first was a statement of the war aims, and this, he felt, was the restoration of Polish and Czech peoples as fully independent and able to take their part in the settlement of peace terms, while Slovakia must also have the opportunity of determining the future and that of Austria should probably be settled in the process of the actual peace-making.

The second statement was that of peace aims. A precise statement of the terms of a settlement was impossible, the archbishop said, but he thought it possible that in principle two courses of action might be pledged. The first was to postpone the meeting of the conference which was to settle permanent peace, terms for a long enough period after the cessation of hostilities to allow the irons of war to cool. This might involve a preliminary conference to settle a temporary truce. Secondly, we should pledge ourselves to settle the permanent peace terms in a general European congress with full resort to a third party “on points where agreement cannot be reached.”

The archbishop continued: “The fact that Herr Hitler might, and probably would, reject the terms is no reason for not stating them. On the contrary, it is a very good reason for doing so. Our statement and his rejection would act as a stimulus to the war effort of our people. Later, when disappointment or anxiety altered the mood of the Germans, Herr Hitler would stand before them as a leader who had rejected honourable conditions of a peace.”