MOMENTOUS DECLARATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 September 1941, Page 6

MOMENTOUS DECLARATION

MR CHURCHILL ENDORSES PREMIER’S VIEWS. TIME SHORT & STRUGGLE ~O T ... . DIRE. (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) ‘ LONDON, September 4. Mr Churchill, speaking at the Mansion House luncheon to Mr Mackenzie •King said the present occasion would stand out .vividly as one, when the city was entertaining so many military representatives of the dominions, it had as guest of honour the Prime Minister of Canada. Mr Churchill continued: “Today we have listened to a memorable, momentous declaration, made here amid our ruins of London but which would resound throughout the Empire and would be carried to all parts' of the world by the marvellous mechanism of modern life and modern war. We listened to the speech, which, I think, to all who heard it will fully explain the long continued authority which Mr Mackenzie King has wielded during more than fifteen years, in which he has been Prime Minister of Canada. He has spoken of. the immense burden wc have to bear, of our unflinching resolve to persevere and carry forward cur standards in common and ho also struck that note —never absent from our minds—that no lasting peace or perfect solution of the difficulties with which we are now confronted, no aversion of that bad fate by which the whole world is menaced can be achieved without the full co-operation in every field of all nations which as yet lie outside the range of the conqueror’s power. I am grateful to Mr Mackenzie King today for having put in terms, perhaps, more pointed than I, as Prime Minister would use, that overpowering sense we have that time is short, that the struggle is dire and that all free men of the world must stand together in one line if humanity is to be spared a deepening, darkening and widening tragedy which can lead only to something in the nature cf immediate World chaos. I hope that during his all too brief visit here, he will find, himself able to sec with his own eyes what wc haye gone through and also feel that unconquerable uplift of energy and resolve which will carry this old Island through storm and carry with it also much which is precious to mankind.” Mr Churchill, referring to the Canadian troops in Britain, said: “We have felt very much with them that they have not had a chance of coming to close quarters with the enemy. It is not their fault. It is not our fault. But there they stand and they have stood for the whole critical period of the last fifteen months, at the very point where they would first be hurled in a counter stroke against the enemy. No greater service could be rendered to this country and no more important military duty could be performed by any troops, among all the Allies, and it seems to me that although they may have felt, envy of Australia and New Zealand, and South Africa, whose troops have been in action, the part they have played in bringing about a final result is second to none.”

In conclusion, speaking of Canada’s war effort. Mr Churchill said: “Your efforts in men, ships and aircraft, in air training, in finance, in food, contain an element in the resistance of the British Empire without which that resistance could not be successfully maintained. Canada is the linchpin of the English speaking world. Canada, with the close relations of friendly and affectionate intimacy with the United States on the one hand and the unswerving fidelity of the British Commonwealth and the Motherland on the other, is the link which joins together these great branches of the human family.” .