NEW OUTLOOK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 July 1942, Page 3

NEW OUTLOOK

AND CAREFUL PLANNING MAKING ATLANTIC CHARTER A REALITY. SPEECH BY SIR STAFFORD CRIPPS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 25. “We must frankly admit that in the past we have not succeeded in achieving a wise use of our resources and that, therefore, we shall need new methods and new organisation if the principles of the Atlantic Charter are to become a reality.” This was the keynote of a speech by the Leader of the House of Commons, Sir Stafford Cripps, in his presidential speech at a session of the British Association conference this afternoon. He added: “There must be a determined change of outlook from that of competition to that of co-operation.” Sir Stafford referred to recent statements in America expressing views on some of the implications of the Atlantic Charter, and said all should agree with the broad objectives set out in those speeches, especially those of President Roosevelt, and it was encouraging to realise there was such a body of leaders in America with whom Britain should willingly co-operate along the paths they indicated. It must not be imagined that the people of Britain were behind in thinking out those problems. A great mass ui research and investigation was under way both in Government and non-official circles. Careful planning would, however, not avail unless there was in the peoples of all nations a spirit of cooperation and a ruthless insistence that we should make the common good of humanity the overriding inspiration of our policies. We were fighting for a moral and not merely a material issue, he said, and one thing was sure, that the United Nations must at the end of the war undertake the international regulation of production and distribution of essential raw materials, in the interests of immediate rehabilitation of the devastated countries as well as with a view to attaining that steadily rising standard of life throughout the world which was one of our objectives. This war, like its predecessor, was a stage in the efforts of the peoples of the world to readjust themselves to new economic and social conditions, and in that sense it must be revolutionary in its effects on our civilisation. It would only be by learning the lessons of our past maladjustment and by taking steps to bring our political, social and economic developments into line with our • scientific advance in every field of human activity that we should avoid the need for yet another revolutionary upheaval after this war was over. This was a task in which all the great nations must co-operate.