Mr. Chamberlain Points to Broken Pledges German Assurances Discredited London, Mar. 17. TYED cheers and applause greeted the final passages of a speech made in Birmingham tonight by Mr. Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, when he declared "There is hardly anything I would not sacrifice for peace, but there is one thing I must except and that is the liberty we have enjoyed for hundreds of years and which we shall never surrender, While Iam not prepared to engage this country by new, unspecified commitments, yet no greater mistake could be made than to suppose that this nation will not take part, to the utmost of its power, in resisting a challenge, if one is ever made.
For that declaration, I am con-vineed I have, not merely the support, sympathy and confidence of my own countrymen and countrywoman, but the approval of the whole British Empire and all other nations who value freedom even more.
Recalling the assurances he had received from Herr Hitler, Mr, Chamberlain asked, "What has become of these disclaimers of no further territorial ambitions What has become of the assurances we do not want Czechs in the Reich What regard has been paid here to the principle of self-determination, concerning which Herr Hitler argued with me so vehemently at Berchtesgaden when asking for the severance of Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia? Does not the question inevitably arise that if it is so easy to discover good reasons for ignoring assurances so solemnly and repeatedly given, what reliance can we place upon any other assurances' that come from the same quarter."
At the beginning of his speech Mr. Chamberlain said: "The tremendous events which have been taking place in Europe have thrown everything else into the background and 1 feel that what you and those who are Vstening want to hear is some in-Aleation of the views of His Majesty's Government as to the nature of the implications of those events.
"One thing is certain and that is that the public opinion of the world Teccived a sharper shock than has fever yet been administered to. it, even by the present regime in Germany. "What may be the effects of this profound disturbance in men's minds cannot yot be foretold, but 1 am sure that it must be far-reaching its results upon the future."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.