Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JULY 15, 1941. NO PEACE WITH HITLER.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JULY 15, 1941. NO PEACE WITH HITLER.

4, a mutual pledge of loyal combined action to the end against the common enemy, the agreement between Britain and Russia which was reported yesterday takes added value and significance from following closely on the explicit statement of British war policy made by the Foreign Secretary, Mr Anthony Eden, in a speech at Leeds on July 5. Speaking on that occasion for the Government of which he is a member, Mr Eden said, in part: — We are not in any circumstances prepared to negotiate with Hitler at any time or on any subject. We shall continue our war effort till he and all his forces have been utterly destroyed. It is as a nation committed to this policy that Britain has now concluded with Russia an agreement under which each party agrees not to conclude a separate peace. Obviously the agi cement could not have been made if the llussian Got ci nmeiit, equally with the British Government, had not been determined to reject negotiations with Hitler, in Air Eden s words, at anv time or on any subject.” This war must be won by military effort and it would be a fatal delusion to find in the participation of Russia any reason or excuse for an abatement of military effort in any particular on the part of the British Empire. That being said, howevci, it is clear that the Anglo-Soviet agreement brings valuable new elements of strength and security to the Allied cause, pailicularly in helping to ensure the defeat ol any peace ollensixe that Hitler may attempt to launch on the strength of his European conquests. In dealing with the possibility of an attempt of this kind, in a speech reported yesterday, the British Lord Privy Seal, Mr Attlee, said that Hitler would like to proclaim himself the saviour of Europe from Bolshevism and that if Russia gave way he would probably promise to restore to their peoples some of the hinds he has seized and to offer what would appear to be generous terms. He will seek to appeal, to every peace-loving person (Mr Attlee added) and I dare say he will find some pacifists to respond. There are still a certain number of amiable, gullible, and woollyminded people who, with a genuine loathing of war, shut their eyes to realities, and, despite the abundant instances of the impossibility of putting any trust whatever in the words of the Nazis, still go about bleating of peace by negotiation. It may be hoped that the agreement now concluded means that it is grasped as firmly in Russia .as it is by an overwhelming proportion of the people of t he British Empire that, to negotiate in any conditions with Hitler and his gang would be an act of imbecility. In the outlook of the Nazis, negotiations represent simply a means of deceiving the other party to the negotiations and gaining cheaply ends that otherwise would have had to be gained more or less expensively by an exercise ol force. No man ever lived whose word was worth less than that ol the German Fuehrer. At an immediate view,, the Anglo-Russian agreement is to be welcomed as guaranteeing unity of aim and action and ensuring that whatever tactics ol deception Hitler may attempt will fail. Looking further ahead, the outlawry of the Nazi gang may be expected to serve a still more posit ive purpose. A stage no doubt will be reached eventually at which the German people, in face of that, outlawry, and under an increasing stress and strain of war, will be split into two sections —those who are prepared to go all the way to ruin with the Nazi gang and those who are not.