Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1940. “A NEGOTIATED PEACE.”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1940. “A NEGOTIATED PEACE.”

ACCORDING to a cablegram from New York on Boxing Day Senator A. 11. Vandenberg, who was a. candidate lot the Republican nomination for the United States Presidency in i recent election, predicted "that ultimately there would be a negotiated peace,” and urged America, to address ”W r ’ es " all concerned, which would be "particularly eftectne il the obvious price of refusal of a just and realistic formula were om own powerfully enlarged activity.”

At its face value, the proposal attributed to Senator Vandenberg evidently cannot be regarded as that of one to defend and uphold the democracies of the work!, - the United States, against totalitarian aggression It b - nat ° Vandenberg has actually expressed himself m the terms stated, his utterance will go far to justify the judgment and action o those Americans who refused, on the occasion ot the recent Presidential election, to believe that American interests and those of world democracy would be as safe in the hands of the Republican Party, as it is now constituted and led, as if President Roosevelt were elected for a third term.

It is, of course, well known that Mr Wendell Willkie, the Republican candidate for the Presidency, supported unreservedly the policy of material aid to Britain as a necessary part of the defence of the United States against totalitarian aggression Mr Willkie was selected as the Republican candidate, however, over the heads of many politicians who had played a. much more prominent part in party and public affairs and one obvious reason for his selection was that those who otherwise, mio'ht have been his rivals for the party nomination recognised that their ideas on foreign policy were not. those held bj a majority of the people of the United States.

As he is reported, Senator Vandenberg has spoken of a “just and realistic formula” for peace, but. in proposing that pressure should be exercised to bring Britain and Germany to the peace table, Mr Vandenberg is himself refusing to a realistic view of the existing world situation or of the merits of the conflict between the totalitarian States and the democracies. It is known, for example, to all the world—save perhaps that part of it which is blinded and made deaf by totalitarian propaganda—that lies and duplicity are as definitely a weapon of Nazi Germany and its jackal ally as are tanks or bombing planes, or any other instruments of warfare. The deliberate and calculated duplicity of Nazi Germany under Hitler’s leadership has been exposed nowhere more effectively than in the United States, by President Roosevelt and many others. The. President has more than once listed outstanding examples of the infamous bad faith with which Hitler has deluded one victim after another with false promises of immunity, while preparing at leisure his plans for their subjugation and spoliation.

Anyone who has even an elementary knowledge of the main course of European affairs during the past six or seven years knows that Hitler’s word and that of the Nazi dictatoiship is entirely worthless. It is obvious enough, too, that Hitler and his fellow-gangsters would welcome, at the present juncture, an opportunity to discuss peace. They would hope in this way to retain possession of much of what, they have meantime gained in their career of aggression and brigandage in Europe and at the same time to gain a breathing space in which to prepare for further aggression. The important point at the moment is that they undoubtedly would grasp eagerly at an opportunity to discuss peace, with the United States in the role of mediator but it is equally clear that no true friend ol either American democracy or European democracy would dream of suggesting that they should be given, this opportunity.

In the simplest terms, the proposal attributed to Senator Vandenberg is an insult, and something worse than that, to honest men everywhere. It is a. suggestion that the robber and murderer should be treated, in a measure at least, on even terms with his victim, or intended victim —that, entirely unscrupulous liars should be invited to confer, under third party mediation, with those whose word is their bond.

It is, of course, as well that ideas like those credited to Senator Vandenberg should be aired freely in the United States and in other democratic lands, for in this way they will be exposed as not merely unsound, but as a betrayal of democracy and .justice. The people of the democracies, and those of the United States as much as any, are well able to perceive for themselves that if freedom and all that it implies are to endure, the foulness of Nazism must be-destroyed, and that no friend of the democracies will suggest that peace talk's should be opened with Hitler and his fellow gangsters. The position of course wo'nld be altered if a genuine movement of revolt and reform in Germany had overthrown the Nazi tyranny, hut it will be time enough to deal with that contingency when it arises.