"The British are particularly reluet~ ant to interfere in other people's business provided always that other people do not seek to interfere in theirs. But when a challenge in the sphere of international relations is sharpened as today in Germany by the denial to men and women of elementary human rights, that challenge Is at once extended to something instinetive and profound in the universal conscience of mankind. We are, therefore, fighting to. maintain the' rule of law and the quality of merey in dealings between man and man and in the great society, of civilized states.
Lord Halifax said they foresaw that time might well come when they would have to fight "for those saving races of our commonwealth, The Foreign Secretary recalled his speech at Chatham House, and. said that his hope then that wat might be honourably averted was disappointed.
Faced with evil things, there were only {wo courses open." You must cither defy or you must acquiesce. And. acquiescence is dishonour.—can feel no doubt in my own conscience that only with supreme dishonour could we in fact have averted war, Now, supreme dishonour as well as supreme folly lie with the aggressor. The supreme dishonour of the German Government is laid open to the world, fax asked whether they covid feel secure that, through vie~ tory in this conflict between physical force, they could achieve their pur> pose.
"The Prime Minister, "has stated that tive peace, that we have no terrltorial ambitions for ourselves, and that we should feel the future 0 hold Mittle hope unless a new peace settlement might be. reached through methods of negotiation and agreement "Bit we are determined, so far as it is humanly possible, to see that Europe will not again be sub-Jected 10 a repetition of this tragedy.
"With this purpose in. view, we shall use all our Influence when the time comes in the building of a new world, in which nations will not per= mit insane armed rivalry to deny: their hopes of a fuller life and future confidence, not to be forever over= borne by the grim foreboding of disaster:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.