BRITAIN'S DETERMINATION

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20907, 12 September 1939, Page 8

BRITAIN'S DETERMINATION

“OUR CONSCIENCE IS CLEAR” STIRRING SPEECH BY MR ANTHONY EDEN NAZI-ISM MEANS LAWLESSNESS, BLOODSHED & MISERY (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) (Received Sept. 12, 3.5 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. II “Our conscience is clear and our memory long,” declared Mr Anthony Eden broadcasting to the United States and the Empire. “We are a united people, more closely knit in a common resolve than at any time in our history. “We are more united and more determined than a quarter of a century ago—if that were possible—when we pledged ourselves to fight a good cause. We are fighting with one heart and one mind. Five times in eighty years the German rulers have embarked on aggression with the slightest pretext —against Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866, France in 1870, the whole world in 1914-18, and Britain, France and Poland in 1939. “Had Herr Hitler and his Nazi associates been honest and sincere they would have negotiated peacefully, but they preferred to ignore and deride their own country’s experience of the British character, and embarked once more on a path of lawlessness, misery and bloodshed, a path of anarchy. “What the Nazi leaders should ask themselves is: ‘What is the destiny to which they are leading the German people?’ Our determination to see the war through to the end is unshaken. We must make it clear to the Nazis and the German people that Britain has not gone to war about the fate of a faraway city in a foreign land. We have decided to fight to show that aggression does not pay. It is already evident that the Nazi Government seeks to delude the people with thoughts that a quick victory in Poland will be followed by indifference and capitulation of the democracies. This is not the truth. “The British people are ready to fight a very long war to the bitter end to rid the world of Hitlerism and all it implies. “In the meantime let the Nazi leaders heed the happening that the British Commonwealth, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa have each given an answer to the challenge- In addition to these great Dominions, India and the Colonies have offered their aid. “Once more Britain stands armed and resolved with her sister nations on her side. “Nazi-ism is a passing phase, a spasm of acute pain, which cannot endure. Out of the welter of suffering we must fashion a new world, better than a stale reflection of the old, bled white.”