BROAD ACTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 November 1943, Page 4

BROAD ACTION

BY ALL UNITED NATIONS NEEDED TO SAFEGUARD PEACE. • 7 VIEWS OF UNITED STATES PUBLICIST. NEW YORK, September 16. The interest of the United States in the post-war world can be safeguarded only by a system which includes all the United Nations rather than through membership in 1 a bloc, regional group or an alliance limited to a few nations, in the opinion of Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of “Foreign "It is a platitude of political discussion today that a country should bring its responsibilities into balance with its physical powers,” Mr Armstrong writes. "History furnishes plenty of horrifying examples of what happens, or might easily have happened, when it does not; but the cardinal error of the United States has been that it did not attempt to bring the two into balance. Does not history teach that the cardinal error of the United States was that it did not know where the line of its interests could be drawn?

One Way to Safety and Respect. ‘The United States would be safe and respected, though hardly loved, if the whole area of its interests coincided with the zone of its power and if it remained constantly ready to use that power. But wishing will not make it so, and our adoption of a cautious policy of withdrawing cur commitments to the outer limits of the range of our direct power will not protect those of our interests which lie beyond. “It is beyond those limits, then, that foresight and the exercise of skill in , the conduct of our foreign relations are most required. For it is in this outer zone that disputes which often do not seem to touch our interests originate and may grow into wars in which we may later be forced involuntarily to intervene. . . . "With whdm shall we deal?” he asks. “With the nations that happen to live in our neighbourhood, and as the leader of this bloc with other regional blocs? Or with one or two or three other Great Powers which, in turn, can exercise control over large areas of the world, so that together we can in fact control it all? Or with all likeminded Powers, the more the better?” Mr Armstrong holds that in the long run the United States would be stronger and safer in the larger group 'and urges “the general acceptance of a general relationship, with general, though graduated, responsibilities,” as offering the only basis for organising world peace under the conditions produced by the development of natural science, communication and education. Only World Peace Worthy.

“Nothing but world peace is ■'’good enough for a world power like* the United States,” he declares. > Taking a stand against isolationism, Mr Armstrong recalls that Neville Chamberlain once said that the British people were not concerned with what was happening in a far-away land.

“As a result 'of that misapprehension,” he continues, “Britain came as near perishing as a nation cam come and still manage to survive; and if the British had perished, we also should have perished in one sense or another of the word. There is no ‘far-away land.’ Our struggle to fix that fact in the public consciousness must not cease or falter. Wc must not proffer the American people half loaves or plan to accept half loaves on their behalf.”