READY RESPONSE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 October 1943, Page 4

READY RESPONSE

TO FRIENDLY AMERICAN OVERTURE MADE BY MR HERBERT MORRISON ASSURANCE OF UNGRUDGING CO-OPERATION (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.25 a.m.) RUGBY, October 6. Speaking to the Anglo-American Press Association in London Mr Herbert Morrison (Home Secretary) answered Colonel Knox’s appeal for more knowledge by both countries of each other’s affairs. He pointed out that in the rapidly developing modern world the most enlightened British people saw the need of holding fast to every fragment of co-operation and unity in the world, “to build it up, give it a fuller meaning and fit it into a wider pattern. n Mr Morrison reaffirmed the weighty reasons for the Britisn policy which lay behind the pledge given, on behalf of the people of Britain, to carry on with all its forces until Japan is finally (defeated. To the two self-governing .Dominions in the Pacific, Mr Morrison said, the destruction of Japan was a matter of life and death, and their struggle for existence and freedom was a matter of the greatest moment to the ordinary people of Britain, who shared with them bloodstained memories of a four years’ brotherhood in arms in' four continents. It was a plain fact that the deeds of Australian and New Zealand troops in North Africa were a part of the heritage, not merely of their own countries, but of Britain, nor was the British war effort in the Eastern theatre something belonging to the future. In the whole vast theatre, from India to New Zealand, the Empire’s contribution in' manpower was comparable with that of the United States. Peoples of the Commonwealth had accounts to settle regarding Burma, Malaya, Hong Kong and Tientsin. “We regard it as a duty to ourselves, as well as to the peoples who were in our care,” said Mr Morrison, “to set the matter fully to rights the moment we can." It was also a matter of profound concern to Britain, as to her Allies, he added, that the end of the war should see the establishment of a Chinese nation free to work out in peace its tremendous destiny.

Mr Morrison said that by far the greatest part of the equipment of the Empire’s fighting forces came from the Empire itself. We owed the United States a debt of gratitude for vitally important help in particular classes of weapons, but on the other hand the Empire, besides equipping its own forces, had sent vast supplies to Russia, had largely equipped the forces of our European Allies and had made an important contribution to the United States' own war effort.