BRITISH POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 March 1943, Page 3

BRITISH POLICY

IN WAR AND PEACE STATED BY MR EDEN NO SECRET ENGAGEMENTS. STRENGTH OF OUR VOLUNTARY UNION. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 27. “I take this opportunity once again to make it plain that we have no secret engagements with any country, nor do we seek as a result of this conflict to extend our boundaries or increase our possessions,” declared the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Eden, speaking in the Maryland . Assembly at Annapolis, United States. Mr. Eden said our enemies looked to this war to sound the death knell of a great' association of nations in the British Commonwealth, but nothing in the world was more unlikely. “The commonwealth is a voluntary union,” he said. “The British Empire is the first in history to evolve the idea of self-governing dominions which we believe can help us reach our common aim —man’s freedom and self-govern-ment under the rule of law. It is in this spirit we shall administer our trust for the people in our empire whom it ds our duty and our pledge to lead to full membership of our community of nations.” NEED OF CO-OPERATION. The keynote of Mr. Eden’s speech was a vigorous and persuasive plea for the co-operation of all the United Nations in peace as in war. No nation, he said, could close its frontiers and hope to live secure. We would never find security and progress within a heavily defended national fortress. We would find them only by the greatest measure of co-operation. The United Nations, particularly the United States, the British Commonwealth, China and the Soviet Union, must act together in war and peace. When the defence of one was the defence of all, security and peace had no frontiers. The common safety demanded that overwhelming force be brought against the aggressor wherever he might be. Only within an international system backed with sufficient force could enterprise and the liberty of the individual find protection. Speaking of the desirability of frequent meetings and close understanding between the leaders of the United Nations, Mr. Eden said that never in his experience had a journey been more worth while than his present one. Referring to the phase after Dunkirk, when “for the first time in our remembered history we faced national extinction,” he paid a special tribute to the United States for sending more than 1,000,000 rifles, guns, machine-guns and other weapons at the time when the Home Guard was called into being. Such acts of generosity and faith, he said, meant more in the history of the two nations than all the speeches of statesmen or the labour of diplomacy. “In the year after the collapse of France, in which Britain stood alone against Germany and Italy, we had, though perilously weak, to send armed divisions round the Cape to reinforce our threatened defences,” he continued. Regarding China, he said, “Let China not misdoubt us. We shall not forget how for. years she resisted aggression single handed. The day will come when the Burma Road will once again be open. It will carry to China an everincreasing volume of supply which the efforts of your country and mine are turning out daily from the assembly lines.” Mr. Eden said that greatest of all peace aims was to ensure that unscrupulous leaders were never again able to carry their peoples into war. We would accordingly take steps for the physical prevention of this danger by enforced disarmament of gangster nations. This protection must be maintained for whatever period was necessary.