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President McCluer, ladies and
gentlemen, and last, but certainly not least, the President of
the United States of America:
I am very glad indeed to come to Westminster College this
afternoon, and I am complimented that you should give me a
degree from an institution whose reputation has been so
solidly established. The name "Westminster" somehow or other
seems familiar to me. I feel as if I have heard of it before.
Indeed now that I come to think of it, it was at Westminster
that I received a very large part of my education in politics,
dialectic, rhetoric, and one or two other things. In fact we
have both been educated at the same, or similar, or, at any
rate, kindred establishments.
It is also an honor, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps almost
unique, for a private visitor to be introduced to an academic
audience by the President of the United States. Amid his heavy
burdens, duties, and responsibilities--unsought but not
recoiled from--the President has traveled a thousand miles to
dignify and magnify our meeting here to-day and to give me an
opportunity of addressing this kindred nation, as well as my
own countrymen across the ocean, and perhaps some other
countries too. The President has told you that it is his wish,
as I am sure it is yours, that I should have full liberty to
give my true and faithful counsel in these anxious and
baffling times. I shall certainly avail myself of this
freedom, and feel the more right to do so because any private
ambitions I may have cherished in my younger days have been
satisfied beyond my wildest dreams. Let me however make it
clear that I have no official mission or status of any kind,
and that I speak only for myself. There is nothing here but
what you see.
I can therefore allow my mind, with the experience of a
lifetime, to play over the problems which beset us on the
morrow of our absolute victory in arms, and to try to make
sure with what strength I have that what has gained with so
much sacrifice and suffering shall be preserved for the future
glory and safety of mankind.
Ladies and gentlemen, the United States stands at this time at
the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the
American Democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined
an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. If you look
around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done but
also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of
achievement. Opportunity is here and now, clear and shining
for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter
it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the
after-time. It is necessary that the constancy of mind,
persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision
shall rule and guide the conduct of the English-speaking
peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we
shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement.
President McCluer, when American military men approach some
serious situation they are wont to write at the head of their
directive the words "over-all strategic concept". There is
wisdom in this, as it leads to clarity of thought. What then
is the over-all strategic concept which we should inscribe
to-day? It is nothing less than the safety and welfare, the
freedom and progress, of all the homes and families of all the
men and women in all the lands. And here I speak particularly
of the myriad cottage or apartment homes where the wage-earner
strives amid the accidents and difficulties of life to guard
his wife and children from privation and bring the family up
the fear of the Lord, or upon ethical conceptions which often
play their potent part.
To give security to these countless homes, they must be
shielded form two gaunt marauders, war and tyranny. We al know
the frightful disturbance in which the ordinary family is
plunged when the curse of war swoops down upon the
bread-winner and those for whom he works and contrives. The
awful ruin of Europe, with all its vanished glories, and of
large parts of Asia glares us in the eyes. When the designs of
wicked men or the aggressive urge of mighty States dissolve
over large areas the frame of civilized society, humble folk
are confronted with difficulties with which they cannot cope.
For them is all distorted, all is broken, all is even ground
to pulp.
When I stand here this quiet afternoon I shudder to visualize
what is actually happening to millions now and what is going
to happen in this period when famine stalks the earth. None
can compute what has been called "the unestimated sum of human
pain". Our supreme task and duty is to guard the homes of the
common people from the horrors and miseries of another war. We
are all agreed on that.
Our American military colleagues, after having proclaimed
their "over-all strategic concept" and computed available
resources, always proceed to the next step -- namely, the
method. Here again there is widespread agreement. A world
organization has already been erected for the prime purpose of
preventing war. UNO, the successor of the League of Nations,
with the decisive addition of the United States and all that
that means, is already at work. We must make sure that its
work is fruitful, that it is a reality and not a sham, that it
is a force for action, and not merely a frothing of words,
that it is a true temple of peace in which the shields of many
nations can some day be hung up, and not merely a cockpit in a
Tower of Babel. Before we cast away the solid assurances of
national armaments for self-preservation we must be certain
that our temple is built, not upon shifting sands or
quagmires, but upon a rock. Anyone can see with his eyes open
that our path will be difficult and also long, but if we
persevere together as we did in the two world wars -- though
not, alas, in the interval between them -- I cannot doubt that
we shall achieve our common purpose in the end.
I have, however, a definite and practical proposal to make for
action. Courts and magistrates may be set up but they cannot
function without sheriffs and constables. The United Nations
Organization must immediately begin to be equipped with an
international armed force. In such a matter we can only go
step by step, but we must begin now. I propose that each of
the Powers and States should be invited to dedicate a certain
number of air squadrons to the service of the world
organization. These squadrons would be trained and prepared in
their own countries, but would move around in rotation from
one country to another. They would wear the uniforms of their
own countries but with different badges. They would not be
required to act against their own nation, but in other
respects they would be directed by the world organization.
This might be started on a modest scale and it would grow as
confidence grew. I wished to see this done after the first
world war, and I devoutly trust that it may be done forthwith.
It would nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, be wrong and
imprudent to entrust the secret knowledge or experience of the
atomic bomb, which the United States, great Britain, and
Canada now share, to the world organization, while still in
its infancy. It would be criminal madness to cast it adrift in
this still agitated and un-united world. No one country has
slept less well in their beds because this knowledge and the
method and the raw materials to apply it, are present largely
retained in American hands. I do not believe we should all
have slept so soundly had the positions been reversed and some
Communist or neo-Facist State monopolized for the time being
these dread agencies. The fear of them alone might easily have
been used to enforce totalitarian systems upon the free
democratic world, with consequences appalling to human
imagination. God has willed that this shall not be and we have
at least a breathing space to set our world house in order
before this peril has to be encountered: and even then, if no
effort is spared, we should still possess so formidable a
superiority as to impose effective deterrents upon its
employment, or threat of employment, by others. Ultimately,
when the essential brotherhood of man is truly embodied and
expressed in a world organization with all the necessary
practical safeguards to make it effective, these powers would
naturally be confided to that world organizations.
Now I come to the second of the two marauders, to the second
danger which threatens the cottage homes, and the ordinary
people -- namely, tyranny. We cannot be blind to the fact that
the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens throughout the
United States and throughout the British Empire are not valid
in a considerable number of countries, some of which are very
powerful. In these States control is enforced upon the common
people by various kinds of all-embracing police governments to
a degree which is overwhelming and contrary to every principle
of democracy. The power of the State is exercised without
restraint, either by dictators or by compact oligarchies
operating through a privileged party and a political police.
It is not our duty at this time when difficulties are so
numerous to interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of
countries which we have not conquered in war. but we must
never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles
of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint
inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through
Magna Carta, the Bill of rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by
jury, and the English common law find their most famous
expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
All this means that the people of any country have the right,
and should have the power by constitutional action, by free
unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change
the character or form of government under which they dwell;
that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts
of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any
party, should administer laws which have received the broad
assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and
custom. Here are the title deeds of freedom which should lie
in every cottage home. Here is the message of the British and
American peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we practice --
let us practice what we preach.
though I have now stated the two great dangers which menace
the home of the people, War and Tyranny, I have not yet spoken
of poverty and privation which are in many cases the
prevailing anxiety. But if the dangers of war and tyranny are
removed, there is no doubt that science and cooperation can
bring in the next few years, certainly in the next few
decades, to the world, newly taught in the sharpening school
of war, an expansion of material well-being beyond anything
that has yet occurred in human experience.
Now, at this sad and breathless moment, we are plunged in the
hunger and distress which are the aftermath of our stupendous
struggle; but this will pass and may pass quickly, and there
is no reason except human folly or sub-human crime which
should deny to all the nations the inauguration and enjoyment
of an age of plenty. I have often used words which I learn
fifty years ago from a great Irish-American orator, a friend
of mine, Mr. Bourke Cockran, "There is enough for all. The
earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful
abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate
her soil in justice and peace." So far I feel that we are in
full agreement.
Now, while still pursing the method -- the method of realizing
our over-all strategic concept, I come to the crux of what I
have traveled here to say. Neither the sure prevention of war,
nor the continuous rise of world organization will be gained
without what I have called the fraternal association of the
English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship
between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United
States of America. Ladies and gentlemen, this is no time for
generality, and I will venture to the precise. Fraternal
association requires not only the growing friendship and
mutual understanding between our two vast but kindred systems
of society, but the continuance of the intimate relations
between our military advisers, leading to common study of
potential dangers, the similarity of weapons and manuals of
instructions, and to the interchange of officers and cadets at
technical colleges. It should carry with it the continuance of
the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of
all Naval and Air Force bases in the possession of either
country all over the world. This would perhaps double the
mobility of the American Navy and Air Force. It would greatly
expand that of the British Empire forces and it might well
lead, if and as the world calms down, to important financial
savings. Already we use together a large number of islands;
more may well be entrusted to our joint care in the near
future.
the United States has already a Permanent Defense Agreement
with the Dominion of Canada, which is so devotedly attached to
the British Commonwealth and the Empire. This Agreement is
more effective than many of those which have been made under
formal alliances. This principle should be extended to all the
British Commonwealths with full reciprocity. Thus, whatever
happens, and thus only, shall we be secure ourselves and able
to works together for the high and simple causes that are dear
to us and bode no ill to any. Eventually there may come -- I
feel eventually there will come -- the principle of common
citizenship, but that we may be content to leave to destiny,
whose outstretched arm many of us can already clearly see.
There is however an important question we must ask ourselves.
Would a special relationship between the United States and the
British Commonwealth be inconsistent with our over-riding
loyalties to the World Organization? I reply that, on the
contrary, it is probably the only means by which that
organization will achieve its full stature and strength. There
are already the special United States relations with Canada
that I have just mentioned, and there are the relations
between the United States and the South American Republics. We
British have also our twenty years Treaty of Collaboration and
Mutual Assistance with Soviet Russia. I agree with Mr. Bevin,
the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, that it might well be
a fifty years treaty so far as we are concerned. We aim at
nothing but mutual assistance and collaboration with Russia.
The British have an alliance with Portugal unbroken since the
year 1384, and which produced fruitful results at a critical
moment in the recent war. None of these clash with the general
interest of a world agreement, or a world organization; on the
contrary, they help it. "In my father's house are many
mansions." Special associations between members of the United
Nations which have no aggressive point against any other
country, which harbor no design incompatible with the Charter
of the United Nations, far from being harmful, are beneficial
and, as I believe, indispensable.
I spoke earlier, ladies and gentlemen, of the Temple of Peace.
Workmen from all countries must build that temple. If two of
the workmen know each other particularly well and are old
friends, if their families are intermingled, if they have
"faith in each other's purpose, hope in each other's future
and charity towards each other's shortcomings" -- to quote
some good words I read here the other day -- why cannot they
work together at the common task as friends and partners? Why
can they not share their tools and thus increase each other's
working powers? Indeed they must do so or else the temple may
not be built, or, being built, it may collapse, and we should
all be proved again unteachable and have to go and try to
learn again for a third time in a school of war incomparably
more rigorous than that from which we have just been released.
The dark ages may return, the Stone Age may return on the
gleaming wings of science, and what might now shower
immeasurable material blessings upon mankind, may even bring
about its total destruction. Beware, I say; time may be short.
Do not let us take the course of allowing events to drift
along until it is too late. If there is to be a fraternal
association of the kind of I have described, with all the
strength and security which both our countries can derive from
it, let us make sure that that great fact is known to the
world, and that it plays its part in steadying and stabilizing
the foundations of peace. There is the path of wisdom.
Prevention is better than the cure.
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately light by the
Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its
Communist international organization intends to do in the
immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their
expansive and proselytizing tendencies. I have a strong
admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for
my wartime comrade, Marshall Stalin. There is deep sympathy
and goodwill in Britain -- and I doubt not here also --
towards the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to
persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing
lasting friendships. We understand the Russian need to be
secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all
possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her
rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We
welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome, or
should welcome, constant, frequent and growing contacts
between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of
the Atlantic. It is my duty however, for I am sure you would
wish me to state the facts as I see them to you. It is my duty
to place before you certain facts about the present position
in Europe.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron
curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line
lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and
Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest,
Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the
populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet
sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only
to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases,
increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone --
Greece with its immortal glories -- is free to decide its
future at an election under British, American and French
observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been
encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany,
and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous
and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties,
which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe,
have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their
numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian
control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every
case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true
democracy.
Turkey and Persia are both profoundly alarmed and disturbed at
the claims which are being made upon them and at the pressure
being exerted by the Moscow Government. An attempt is being
made by the Russians in Berlin to build up a quasi-Communist
party in their zone of occupied Germany by showing special
favors to groups of left-wing German leaders. At the end of
the fighting last June, the American and British Armies
withdrew westward, in accordance with an earlier agreement, to
a depth at some points of 150 miles upon a front of nearly
four hundred miles, in order to allow our Russian allies to
occupy this vast expanse of territory which the Western
Democracies had conquered.
If no the Soviet Government tries, by separate action , to
build up a pro-Communist Germany in their areas, this will
cause new serious difficulties in the American and British
zones, and will give the defeated Germans the power of putting
themselves up to auction between the Soviets and the Western
Democracies. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these
facts -- and facts they are -- this is certainly not the
Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which
contains the essentials of permanent peace.
The safety of the world, ladies and gentlemen, requires a new
unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently
outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong parent races in
Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which
occurred in former times, have sprung. Twice in our own
lifetime we have seen the United States, against their wished
and their traditions, against arguments, the force of which it
is impossible not to comprehend, twice we have seen them drawn
by irresistible forces, into these wars in time to secure the
victory of the good cause, but only after frightful slaughter
and devastation have occurred. Twice the United State has had
to send several millions of its young men across the Atlantic
to find the war; but now war can find any nation, wherever it
may dwell between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with
conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe, within
the structure of the United Nations and in accordance with our
Charter. That I feel opens a course of policy of very great
importance.
In front of the iron curtain which lies across Europe are
other causes for anxiety. In Italy the Communist Party is
seriously hampered by having to support the Communist-trained
Marshal Tito's claims to former Italian territory at the head
of the Adriatic. Nevertheless the future of Italy hangs in the
balance. Again one cannot imagine a regenerated Europe without
a strong France. All my public life I never last faith in her
destiny, even in the darkest hours. I will not lose faith now.
However, in a great number of countries, far from the Russian
frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns
are established and work in complete unity and absolute
obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist
center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United
States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist
parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and
peril to Christian civilization. These are somber facts for
anyone to have recite on the morrow a victory gained by so
much splendid comradeship in arms and in the cause of freedom
and democracy; but we should be most unwise not to face them
squarely while time remains.
The outlook is also anxious in the Far East and especially in
Manchuria. The Agreement which was made at Yalta, to which I
was a party, was extremely favorable to Soviet Russia, but it
was made at a time when no one could say that the German war
might no extend all through the summer and autumn of 1945 and
when the Japanese war was expected by the best judges to last
for a further 18 months from the end of the German war. In
this country you all so well-informed about the Far East, and
such devoted friends of China, that I do not need to expatiate
on the situation there.
I have, however, felt bound to portray the shadow which, alike
in the west and in the east, falls upon the world. I was a
minister at the time of the Versailles treaty and a close
friend of Mr. Lloyd-George, who was the head of the British
delegation at Versailles. I did not myself agree with many
things that were done, but I have a very strong impression in
my mind of that situation, and I find it painful to contrast
it with that which prevails now. In those days there were high
hopes and unbounded confidence that the wars were over and
that the League of Nations would become all-powerful. I do not
see or feel that same confidence or event he same hopes in the
haggard world at the present time.
On the other hand, ladies and gentlemen, I repulse the idea
that a new war is inevitable; still more that it is imminent.
It is because I am sure that our fortunes are still in our own
hands and that we hold the power to save the future, that I
feel the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and
the opportunity to do so. I do not believe that Soviet Russia
desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the
indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we
have to consider here today while time remains, is the
permanent prevention of war and the establishment of
conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in
all countries. Our difficulties and dangers will not be
removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed
by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed
by a policy of appeasement. What is needed is a settlement,
and the longer this is delayed, the more difficult it will be
and the greater our dangers will become.
From what I have seen of our Russian friends and Allies during
the war, I am convinced that there is nothing for which they
have less respect than for weakness, especially military
weakness. For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of
power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work
on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of
strength. If the Western Democracies stand together in strict
adherence to the principles will be immense and no one is
likely to molest them. If however they become divided of
falter in their duty and if these all-important years are
allowed to slip away then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us
all.
Last time I saw it all coming and I cried aloud to my own
fellow-countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any
attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might
have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken here
and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let
loose upon mankind. there never was a war in history easier to
prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated
such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented in
my belief without the firing of a single shot, and Germany
might be powerful, prosperous and honored today; but no one
would listen and one by one we were all sucked into the awful
whirlpool. We surely, ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you,
surely, we must not let it happen again. This can only be
achieved by reaching now, in 1946, by reaching a good
understanding on all points with Russia under the general
authority of the United Nations Organization and by the
maintenance of that good understanding through many peaceful
years, by the whole strength of the English-speaking world and
all its connections. There is the solution which I
respectfully offer to you in this Address to which I have
given the title, "The Sinews of Peace".
Let no man underrate the abiding power of the British Empire
and Commonwealth. Because you see the 46 millions in our
island harassed about their food supply, of which they only
grow one half, even in war-time, or because we have difficulty
in restarting our industries and export trade after six years
of passionate war effort, do not suppose we shall not come
through these dark years of privation as we have come through
the glorious years of agony. Do not suppose that half a
century from now you will not see 70 or 80 millions of Britons
spread about the world united in defense of our traditions,
and our way of life, and of the world causes which you and we
espouse. If the population of the English-speaking
Commonwealths be added to that of the United States with all
that such co-operation implies in the air, on the sea, all
over the globe and in science and in industry, and in moral
force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power
to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the
contrary there will be an overwhelming assurance of security.
If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations
and walk forward in sedate and sober strength seeking no one's
land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the
thoughts of men; if all British moral and material forces and
convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association,
the highroads of the future will be clear, not only for our
time, but for a century to come. |
