PEACE DEMAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 December 1940, Page 6

PEACE DEMAND

BY INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY DISCUSSION IN HOUSE OF COMMONS. ERRONEOUS IDEAS GIVEN SHORT SHRIFT. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.3 a.m.) RUGBY, December 5. The House of Commons debated the Independent Labour Party’s amendment to the King's Speech, regretting “that the Government has failed to set forth the terms upon which peace might be made,” and suggesting the calling of a conference by means of which “the war might be brought to an early conclusion.” Mr J. McGovern, moving the amendment, said a growing number of British people believed that the conflict should be ended and could be ended if reason were allowed to supersede brute force. It Hitler made a speech in the Reichstag, Mr Churchill should make a reasoned reply in the House of Commons, plying Hitler with questions as to what kind of world he envisaged after the war, and what he intended to do in certain countries today under Nazi domination.

Seconding the amendment, the Rev. C. Campbell Stephen said the Independent Labour Party, just as did members of other parties, dreaded the possibility of a German victory. The time had come when Britain should make a great moral gesture to the world and offer peace to the other side on the basis of justice for all people, and thus give hope to the great mass of workers in every country.

The first speaker to oppose the amendment' was Mr James Griffiths (Labour) who, citing the example of Marshal Petain’s actions, said the question before Britain was not peace or war, but capitulation or survival. Sir Percy Harris (Liberal) also opposed the amendment and Mr James Walker (Labour) said that if the amendment had been put before the National Labour Conference, it would have been overwhelmingly defeated. Winding up the debate in favour of the amendment, Mr J. Maxton (Independent Labour) said a majority of the people in the world desired peace. Mr C. R. Attlee asked those supporting the-amendment whether they favoured peace at any price or whether] they believed in liberty and social j justice. If Hitler refused to listen to! what was called a point of reason and rejected the plea for liberty and social justice put forward by the supporters of the amendment, would they fight .or give way? Mr Attlee asked. The ideals for which Hitler and Mussolini stood wdre not those of highly civilised human beings. The great difficulty confronting the Government was that Britain was up against people who would not accept the beginning of the foundations and decencies of modern civilisation. The House must realise that the present war was a conflict between two different conceptions of how affairs should be carried on. The Fascists and Nazis had destroyed every vestige of freedom in Europe. The British aim was to try to establish a world peace of free people, a peace ' such as civilised people understood. It was not an occasion when the Government should be expected to give a detailed exposition of its war aims. His Majesty the King, in his Speech had said: “We are resolved to continue the fight until liberty and social justice have been secured.”

There was no order or authority, no social justice on the Continent of Europe today, Mr Attlee concluded. Britain had to replace anarchy in the world by ordered peace and must base ordered peace on social justice. The amendment was rejected by 234 votes to four.