GREAT PROBLEMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 December 1943, Page 3

GREAT PROBLEMS

OF POST=WAR ORDER DISCUSSED BY GENERAL SMUTS. SOME NOTABLE SUGGESTIONS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 2. ■ General Sumis, in an address, which has just been made public, to the United Kingdom branch of the Empire Parliamentary Association, spoke of Britain’s place in the modern world organisation and the problems of the Commonwealth and Empire, and suggested that some colonies should be grouped and more closely linked with certain of the Dominions.

The South African Prime Minister said that, the United Nations might be faced with questions so vast, complicated, difficult and intractable that they might have to be satisfied with a comprehensive armistice ending the war and leave the rest of the problems to a long series of conferences without coming to any general peace conference.

The new world organisation for security must provide not only for freedom and democracy but also for leadership and power, he said. That could be done more effectively than in the Covenant of the League of Nations by giving a proper place to the great Powers which were now at the head of the United Nations _ fighting the cause of humanity. As in the war so in the peace the great Powers must be responsible in the first instance for the maintenance of security and the preservation of world peace, and this primary responsibility would not be affected by any duties resting on the rest of the United Nations, The lesson had also been learned that the new organisation to be erected after the war- must attend as efficiently to economic as to political conditions. CHANGES IN EUROPE. General Smuts then directed attention to what is happening now and the state of affairs at the end of the war. “In Europe three out of the five great Powers will have disappeared,” he said.

‘■We have never seen such a situation in the modern history of this continent. France has gone, and if ever she returns it will be a hard, long and upward pull to emerge again. We are . dealing with one of the greatest and most far-reaching catastrophes in history, the like of which I have not read of. Italy has completely disappeared and may never be a great Power again. Germany at the end will disappear, perhaps never to emerge again in the old form. The Germans are a preat people with great qualities, but Germany will be written off the slate for long, long years, and after that a new world may have arisen. “We therefore are left with Britain and Russia. Russia is a new colossus that bestrides Europe. With the others down and out, and herself mistress of the Continent, her power will not only be great on that- account, but it will also be still greater because the Japanese Empire will also have gone. You will have Russia in a position which no country has ever occupied in the history of Europe.

THE EMPIRE COMMONWEALTH. “Britain will have glory, honour and prestige such, perhaps, as no nation has ever enjoyed in history, recognised as possessing a greatness of soul that has entered the very substance of world history. But from the material and economic point of view she will be a poor country. She has put in her all. This country has held nothing back. There is nothing left in the till. She has put body and soul and everything in to win the battle for mankind. She will have won, but she will come out poor in substance.

“The British Empire Commonwealth remains, as before, among the greatest things in the world, and nothing can touch that fact, but the Empire Commonwealth is mostly extra-European. Many look to a closer union of the United States and Britain, with the Commonwealth of Empire, but this would stir up international enmity which might lead to still more colossal struggles for world power.” Referring to Britain’s relations with her two partners of immense power and resources, Russia and America, General Smuts put forward the idea that Britain should strengthen her European position by working closely with the small democracies in western Europe, “which are entirely with us in outlook, way of life and all ideals.” ' WEST EUROPEAN GROUPING. By themselves these democracies might be lost, as they were lost today. They at last had been taught that neutrality was obsolete. The system evolved in the Commonwealth opened the door to developments. The Commonwealth was a group of sovereign States living together in peace and war under a system that had stood the greatest possible strain. It was for the western European nations to settle ‘whether they should not help themselves by helping to create, out of closer union with Britain, a great European State — great not only in its wprld-wide ramifications but also as a Power on this continent and an equal partner with the other colossal Powers in the leadership of nations.’’ Referring to the present centralisation of the Empire and decentralisation -’of the Commonwealth, General Smuts expressed doubt as to whether this dualism was safe. In the colonies he had found criticism of this situation. “The Britisher resents being run by others and at a distance,” he said. “The question is whether there should not be an approach between the two systems so as gradually to bring the Empire- and Commonwealth closer.” Decentralisation from London would give administrative powers to some very small or primitive units, and he suggested grouping the smaller units and abolishing some which had arisen haphazard. “Where there will be new larger groups you will find it possible to bring these closer to the neighbouring Dominions, thereby interesting the Dominion in the colonial group,” he added.