PEACE AIMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1942, Page 3

PEACE AIMS

ATTITUDE OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT BASED ON ATLANTIC CHARTER LORD CRANBORNE’S SURVEY. DISCUSSIONS WITH DOMINIONS & ALLIES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.35 a.m.) RUGBY, June 2. The Secretary for the Colonies, Viscount Cranborne, in his reply in a debate in the House of Lords on peace aims, said that .while the Government sympathised with those who pressed for an immediate and detailed declaration of peace aims, there were overwhelming reasons against a unilateral de- ‘ claration of policy at the present stage. We had already put our names to the Atlantic Charter, which laid down the fundamental principles on which a peace settlement must be based, Lord Cranborne added, and there was no one who dissented from these,principles. The application of the principles of the charter must be a matter, however, not for his Majesty’s Government alone, but a joint task for all the nations who adhered to the charter when peace came. If it was a mistake to make a declaration of war aims, it was riot a mistake to prepare war aims and any responsible Government ought, to the fullest extent possible, to make ’ preparations for the situation which would arise when the war was brought to an end. To neglect that would be a deplorable dereliction of duty. Lord Cranborne assured the House of Lords that exchanges of views on questions of post-war conditions had already taken place between his Majesty’s Government, the Dominions, the United States, Russian and the United Nations. At present these discussions were qt a confidential stage and they had not yet reached a stage when a general proclamation could be made. On the economic side, Lord Cranborne said, his Majesty’s Government was ready to consider with an open mind all proposals brought forward on the American side or by any other' member of the United Nations. “And we shall be ready to put forward some constructive proposals of our own.”