Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1943. AN UNDERSTANDING WITH RUSSIA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 August 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1943. AN UNDERSTANDING WITH RUSSIA.

WITHOUT accepting prematurely the fears expressed by some American and J>rifish commentators that dittciences have arisen between .Russia and the Western Allies regarding the strategic conduct of the war, and accompanying suggestions that a greater and more serious cleavage may develop oxei post-wai policy, it is possible to agree unreservedly with those who maintain that a closer political understanding between Russia, Britain and the United States should be striven lor by all who desire a good future, not only for these nations, but for humanity in general. It is held justly by increasing numbers of people in all parts of the English-speaking world that hopes of future peace, progress and welfare are contingent to a very great degree upon continued and expanding co-operation between the countries of the British Commonwealth and the United States. But it is held also very widely and with equally good reason, that AngloAmerican co-operation can never in itself be enough and indeed that it will serve its best and most essential purpose if it helps to bring about international co-operation on the broadest basis that can be devised. If this Avar is not to have been fought in vain, it must be followed by the establishment of an international organisation as nearly universal as it can be made—an organisation capable of policing the world against aggression and of developing conditions of world co-operation in which aggression by one nation against others will tend more and more to become unthinkable. An attempt to build up this organisation without the full cooperation of Russia, as well, of course, as that of many other nations, notably China as well as European and other States, would be worse than futile. To insist upon the special importance of Russia in future world organisation is not to forget or to abandon the interests and aspirations of the smaller countries, of which so many in Europe are clustered round the borders of the Soviet Union. It is rather to insist upon the only condition in which these small countries can be re-established in the maximum liberty and with the maximum safeguards that are attainable. So far as the conduct of the war is concerned, it should not be long before the march of events makes an end of suggestions now current that there is some dissatisfaction in Russia over delay in opening another land battle front in Europe. It is no longer a question of opening a “second front.” In their Mediterranean operations the Allies are already hammering at the gates of continental Europe and it is possible that, these operations may develop on a very great scale. The air offensive from the west is another front on which ever more devastating blows are being struck at the heart of enemy territory. There is much to suggest, too, that the Allies may very soon launch new attacks on the enemy in Europe which will turn fully to account the defeats that have been and are being inflicted upon him in Russia, in the Mediterranean, and in his areas of vital war production in. the Ruhr, the Rhineland and elsewhere. It has to he considered, too, that the speeding up of the war in the Pacific which is now in prospect has its full importance for Russia as well as for her Allies. Russia is not at war with Japan, but she is’menaced by Japan and it certainly is not less in her interests Ilian in those of other nations that an end should be made of this Asiatic menace. If, as Air Vernon Bartlett, amongst others, has contended, there is an apparent gap between the Soviet and the British and American approaches to the European problem, it is very necessary indeed that earnest efforts should be made to close this gap. Few things are more vital, to the future of mankind than an understanding between Russia, the English-speaking and other nations which will enable them to work together in harmony in organising stable and safeguarded peace and international co-operation.