HEAVY HANDICAP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 May 1941, Page 5

HEAVY HANDICAP

ACCEPTED BY BRITAIN IN RESPECTING NEUTRALITY OF EIRE. “BOND BY WHICH WE SHALL ABIDE?” (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 6. Referring to Eire's neutrality in a speech to the Royal Empire Society, the Minister of Information. Mr Duff Cooper, said: “It is an example and proof to the world of the true independence of our Dominions. However much we suffer from it —and deeply, disastrously we suffer from it—we respect the independence of Eire and allow it to remain neutral while we are fighting for our lives. “That shows that Britain abides by her word and that the Statute of Westminster is not a scrap of paper which you can tear up. but a bond we have entered into and by which we shall abide.” Mr Duff' Cooper referred also to the work of the British Broadcasting Corporation in combating Nazi diplomacy. “It was very busy talking to Yugoslavia after the Government had signed the pact with Germany," he said. “We took hours away from other countries to talk to Yugoslavia day and night. We turned on the best people we could find, among them Mr Amery, the Secretary of State for India. We hope that these efforts may have had something to do with the coup d’etat, but we don’t claim all the credit for it. and we certainly shall not get it.”