Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1941. POST VICTORY PLANS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 September 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1941. POST VICTORY PLANS.

0F commanding importance as an orderly continual ion ol the work ol' laying foundations of a better world order which was inaugurated in June last, the second meeting ol' the InterAllied Conference in London was made memorable by the addition of Russia to the list of countries represented and by the declaration of the Soviet Ambassador to Britain, M Ivan Maisky, that his country accepted unreservedly Hie declaration of princijiles for world organisation iirawn up l»\ I resident Roosevelt and Mr Churchill at their Atlantic, meeting.

The Soviet Union (M. Maisky said) was in complete agreement with the charter drawn up by President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill. Those principles were important in the present circumstances, and the application of them would secure most energetic support’ from the Government and people of the Soviet Union.

As Al. Maisky rightly emphasised, the main and immediate task is to mobilise and concentrate all available resources on smashing Hitlerite aggression and annihilating the yoke of Nazidom, biit it is also highly important that preparations should be made in good time to cope with the conditions which will arise when that task has been carried to a conclusion.

In the absence of well-organised international co-operation, the state of European countries redeemed from bondage to the Nazis would be one of chaotic and hopeless disorder, likely to lead to widespread famine and pestilence. Imperative demands are thus made on the energy and resource of the free nations—demands not to be ignored even though these nations are involved in a fury of conflict against aggression the end of which is far from being in sight.. The British Foreign Secretary, Air Eden, stated at the Inter-Allied Conference that these demands were already being met to the extent that stocks ol food were being collected and stored in readiness, and the resolution he proposed declared that the aim of the Allies was that food, raw materials and anything else necessary should be made available to countries freed from Nazi oppression.

Vastly important as is this aspect of its work, it may be hoped that the Inter-Allied Conference is also opening the way to much greater developments in international co-operalion. As the British Home Secretary (Air Herbert Morrison) observed the other day —

After the war, somebody would have to take care of the peace of Europe. To do this there would be Britain, the United States (.which he hoped would not turn its back on Europe after the war), and the Soviet Union.

So far as an effective lead towards a new international order is concerned, this is well enougli, but nothing less will give adequate safeguards for the future than an active association of all nations, great and small, which desin.* to uphold a reign of law in international affairs. The little European nations, as well as one great nation, have gone down before the Nazis like straw before the sickle. Banded together in an effective international organisation, these same little nations would have constituted an important part of a force which neither Hitler nor any other gangster of his debased and noxious type could have hoped to overcome.

The hope at least appears that the Inter-Allied Conference will be able to do much more than shape plans for the economic relief and restoration of despoiled and ravaged nations. I t the world is to be safeguarded against a repetition ol the greatest and most desolating tragedy it has ever known, nations great and small must combine to establish a League oi Nations, under that or another name, capable of taking prompt and positive action against, 'aggression in its earliest manifestation. The unanimous acceptance by the representatives of all the Allied nations of the principles and policy set forth in the Atlantic Declaration is of good promise as a step in that direction.