LAW OF NATIONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 September 1942, Page 3

LAW OF NATIONS

ACCORDING TO NEW YORK PAPER SELF-PRESERVATION PLACED FIRST. REPLY TO RUSSIAN DEMANDS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, September 26. The “New York Times” in an editorial says: “The Russians’ insistent second front demands call for plain speaking. _ We are not in this war to save Russia. She is not in this war to save us. She did not try to save Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands or France in 1940; she did not lift a finger when the invasion of Britain seemed imminent. However, let it be admitted that she is no, more selfish than were Britain or France when they abandoned Czechoslovakia to the wolves or than we were when we connived, at that betrayal. Self-preserva-tion is Russia’s first law. It is also ours.

. “Self-preservation dictates that Russia shall not risk permitting us to use Siberian bases against Japan, • though we might save thousands of American lives and billions of dollars thereby. Self-preservation dictates that Britain and America shall not vainly sacrifice half a million men because we admire profoundly the gallant defenders of Stalingrad. We have no choice but to allow specialists to decide when we shall strike in Europe. “A blow struck this autumn at great risk with great losses may contribute more to final victory than a heavier blow in the spring. But this is not a question to be settled in the pages of newspapers or magazines or on the floors of Congress. It is folly to attempt to settle it that way. “Let us say openly that we will not harry our President and his advisers into an unwise adventure. Let us confess that we believe as firmly in the American system as M. Stalin does in the Russian, and let us face the fact that the systems are not alike. Let us then make every honest effort to establish a foundation on which they can exist peacefully and amicably in the same world. We can build on this understanding: we cannot build on hypocrisy.”