Mr, Sumner Welles, U.S. Under-Secretary of State, hit the nail on the head on Saturday in his speech at Cleveland, when he said what humanity is witnessing today is not another Great War, but a world revolution, the struggle of what is lowest in human nature against what is finest, of barbarism against civilization, of darkness against light. If it is necessary to define which countries are playing the various roles it is "sufficient to remember that the Govern-"ment of the United States with the "approval of Congress, and it is believed the majority of the American people, is comitted to a policy of giving Great Britain support and assistance, through of supplies and munitions to Empire. And why? Because as felles says "Alone the British people, ith heroism worthy of the tradition of that "brave people, are defending successfully their homes and liberties,—the same liber-"ties which free men cherish everywhere. The war aims of the enemy have been freely stated. They amount to the division of the world along lines best suited to serve their ts after the dismemberment of the an agitation for some time Britain declaring what aims she she should not at the present juncture. Obviously the first and immediate aim of the British Empire is to destroy the menace to "which Hitler has forged during endeavour to build a new international structure which will ensure peace for a con-Siderable time to come, if not permanently. That will not be by the formulation of war aims in an atmosphere of universal hostility, but by the cool planning which can only be possible when the heat of battle has subsided. What Hitler would clamp about the necks of humanity were he ever to succeed in his infamous schemes can readily be understood all that has happened in Germany since obtained power.
The German has been reduced to a state of helotry, deprived of all the liberties for which mankind has struggled for centuries, terrorized, and robbed of individuality and reduced to the status of the ant in the heap. Nations which have. been overrun are being treated in the same manner, brutal persecution being the means whereby Hitler hopes to attain his end. The same is planned for the rest of the free peoples of the world, and there need be no doubt about it that, if that evil man were to prevail, civilization, which has been slowly and arduously built up by mankind, would disappg#r and the clock put back centuries. It would mean that the doctrine that man was created for the State would supersede that which holds that the State was created for man, and in short what the leaders of the aggressor States contemplate is the subjection of the world to the condition to which they have reduced their own people. The attempt has already led to the almost complete destruction of the rule of law throughout the world, and an attempt to institute in its place the rule of force. What the democracies who resisted Hitler entered the struggle for was to prevent that coming about. Why Britain continues the struggle is not only in self-defence, though that is a paramount consideration, but to ensure that the world shall again be made fit for free men to live in. It is a debt which the British Empire owes the world that it shall not be deprived of the benefits of the democratic rule under which peoples have risen and thrived, and under which they will continue to flourish in the future. Imagination balks at the idea of a world dominated by such criminally minded men as those in control of Germany at the present moment, at all the, hideousness which has been inflicted upon the Germans themselves and which Hitler wishes to impose on the whole world. Mankind witnesses even now the murder of a nation,—Poland,—which is being carried out with a system matic ruthlessness unbelievable in the human being. It would see more were Hitler allowed to carry the day, and Mr. Welles accurately summed up the situation when describing the present struggle as a world revolution. It has all the horror about it to justify the definition.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.