Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 1941. UNITY FOR WAR AND PEACE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 January 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 1941. UNITY FOR WAR AND PEACE.

MUCH as war problems and demands tend at present to 1 monopolise attention, there can be no doubt about the overshadowing importance and good promise of the declaration signed in'Washington the other day by representatives of the United States, Britain, Russia, China, the Netherlands and 21 other anti-Axis nations. The signatories have pledged themselves to pool their resources against the Axis and not to make a separate armistice with the enemy. That this pledge goes hand in hand with the shaping of joint strategic plans may be seen from the appointment of Allied commanders-—General Waved, Admiral Hart, of the American Navy, and others and the grouping of forces these appointments imply.

Since all or most of the nations concerned had already signified their adhesion to the Atlantic Charter, it may be supposed also that their joint declaration has its definite and practical, bearing, not only on the prosecution of the war by the Grand Alliance the declaration constitutes, but on the conditions in which peace, when it has been re-established, will be safeguarded.

In oversea comment it lias been said that the Washington declaration constitutes a better foundation for a new League of Nations than that laid in 1919, and that it is of the utmost importance that on this occasion the United States is taking an active and leading part in helping to build a new international order. Both statements appear to be well warranted. The unification of opinion in the United States brought about by Japan’s treacherous attack not only ensures a maximum and unsparing use of American resources in prosecuting the war,but may be expected to go far towards ensuring effective international co-operation when the war has been won.

An association of nations to establish and safeguard peace must be broad-based —it must be open to all law-abiding nations prepared to co-operate for the common good—and appropriately the signatories of the Washington declaration are inviting other nations to do likewise. It is a vital condition of the success of any association of the kind, however, that the United States should accept active and fully responsible membership. As Mr Churchill told members of Congress when he addressed them in Washington, had the United States and Britain kept together after the last war and taken common measures for their safety, “this renewed attack need never have fallen upon them.” All possible point is thus given to the British Prime Minister’s question:—

Did they not owe it to themselves, to their children and to all mankind to make sure that those catastrophes would not engulf them a third time?

It may be hoped that the signing of the Washington declaration means not only that, the signatories will refuse to make terms separately with the enemy, but that as an alliance they will, make peace only in conditions in which that, peace will be safeguarded adequately. Tt has to be remembered that in the Atlantic Charter, Britain and the United States had already affirmed their belief that, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, the disarmament of aggressor nations is essential.