HOPE FOR FUTURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 March 1940, Page 9

HOPE FOR FUTURE

DEPENDS ON DESTRUCTION j OF NAZI SYSTEM DECLARATION BY DOMINIONS SECRETARY. LIFE & DEATH STRUGGLE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, February 29. “This is a life and deatli struggle with, a remorseless foe. Let us have no illusion about that. The Nazi system and all it stands for must go,” said the Dominions Secretary, Mr Eden, speaking in Liverpool. “There must be an end to the era of broken faith, and political perjury must be shown to have had its day. If there is to be any future for the human race the Nazi system must go. “Until Hitlerism and the international gangsterdom for which it stands are utterly and finally destroyed there is going to be neither security for the present nor hope for the future. For free people no fate could be worse than servitude to Nazism. “We were reluctant to take up the challenge, but now we are in it we will see it through to the end. No other course is possible, and to attempt anything else would be to lose the present and betray the future.” TRIBUTE TO DOMINIONS. Mr Eden reviewed in a series of .’tnpressive and descriptive passages the scale and variety of the Dominions’ effort in the war. and paid a warm tribute to the spirit in which the Dominions were associating themselves with the Governments of Britain and France in opposition to aggression and tyranny. He gave a first-hand account of the memorable scenes of welcome to the Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders in which he Of the Empire air training scheme he said: “There will soon be a continuous flow of pilots, observers and guncrews, numbered not in thousands but in tens of thousands every year. I have no hesitation in saying that in conception and execution there has been no parallel in the world’s history for this scheme.”

He sounded a warning that after long months of relative inaction on the land fronts there might soon be movement, but he said that the respite so far had given Britain a chance to forge her weapons. Mr Eden related as typical of the Dominion’s spirit a remark which a soldier from “down under” had made to him: “It seems there is a job of work to be done,” and he added, “with God’s help it will be done.” Mr Eden said that plans were being made for men to be trained in Southern Rhodesia, and this South African scheme was over and above the big Canadian scheme. The breathing space we had had. had been most valuable. It had helped us to forge oui’ weapons, and when the weapons were forged they would be used till Hitlerism and the international gangsterdom for which it stood had been destroyed. Mr Eden spoke of his contact, when Foreign Secretary, with Herr von Ribbentrop. the former German Ambassador to Britain, and said that Herr von Ribbentrop often told him of the dangers of Bolshevism, and claimed that but for the Nazi “St. George” the “red dragon” would have swallowed Britain. “What has happened now?” asked Mr Eden. “The ‘red dragon’ has taken the Nazi St. George for a ‘ride.’ ”