I am glad to come to Westminster College this
afternoon, and am complimented that you should give me a degree.
The name "Westminster" is somehow familiar to me.
I seem to have heard of it before. Indeed, 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 honour, 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 travelled a thousand miles to dignify and magnify
our meeting here today 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 been gained with so much
sacrifice and suffering shall be preserved for the future glory
and safety of mankind.
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
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 constancy of mind, persistency
of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall guide and
rule 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.
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 today? 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 in 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 from the two giant marauders, war and tyranny.
We all know the frightful disturbances in which the ordinary family
is plunged when the curse of war swoops down upon the breadwinner
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 civilize
society, humble folk are confronted with difficulties with which
they cannot cope. For them all is distorted, all is broken, 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 the 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 delegate 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 uniform 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 would grow as confidence
grew. I wished to see this done after the First World War, and
I devoutly trust it may be done forthwith.
It would nevertheless 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 organisation, while it is still in its infancy. It
would be criminal madness to cast it adrift in this still agitated
and un-united world. No one in any country has slept less well
in their beds because this knowledge and the method and the raw
materials to apply it, are at present largely retained in American
hands. I do not believe we should all have slept so soundly had
the positions been reversed and if some Communist or neo-Fascist
State monopolised 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 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 organisation.
Now I come to the second danger of these two
marauders which threatens the cottage, the home, and the ordinary
people-namely, tyranny. We cannot be blind to the fact that the
liberties enjoyed by individual citizens 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. 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 practise - let us practise what we preach.
I have now stated the two great dangers which
menace the homes 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 co-operation can bring in the next
few years to the world, certainly in the next few decades 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 subhuman crime which should deny
to all the nations the inauguration and enjoyment of an age of
plenty. I have often used words which I learned 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 in
peace." So far I feel that we are in full agreement.
Now, while still pursuing the method of realising
our overall strategic concept, I come to the crux of what I have
travelled 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. This is no time
for generalities, and I will venture to be 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 relationship 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 Defence
Agreement with the Dominion of Canada, which is so devotedly attached
to the British Commonwealth and Empire. This Agreement is more
effective than many of those which have often been made under
formal alliances. This principle should be extended to all British
Commonwealths with full reciprocity. Thus, whatever happens, and
thus only, shall we be secure ourselves and able to work 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 overriding
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 which I have just mentioned,
and there are the special relations between the United States
and the South American Republics. We British have 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. The
British have an alliance with Portugal unbroken since 1384, and
which produced fruitful results at critical moments in the late
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 harbour no
design incompatible with the Charter of the United Nations, far
from being harmful, are beneficial and, as I believe, indispensable.
I spoke earlier 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, and 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 cannot they 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 shall 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 I have described, with all the extra 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 cure.
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately
lighted 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,
Marshal 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 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, 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 many 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 favours
to groups of left-wing German leaders. At the end of the fighting
last June, the American and British Armies withdrew westwards,
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 now 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 British and American
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 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 wishes and their traditions, against
arguments, the force of which it is impossible not to comprehend,
drawn by irresistible forces, into these wars in time to secure
the victory of the good cause, but only after frightful slaughter
and devastation had occurred. Twice the United States 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 its Charter. That
I feel is an open cause 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 have worked for a Strong
France and I never lost 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 centre. 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 sombre facts for anyone to
have to recite on the morrow of 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 favourable to Soviet Russia,
but it was made at a time when no one could say that the German
war might not extend all through the summer and autumn of 1945
and when the Japanese war was expected to last for a further 18
months from the end of the German war. In this country you are
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 felt bound to portray the shadow which,
alike in the west and in the east, falls upon the world. I was
a high 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 even the same hopes in the haggard world at the present time.
On the other hand 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
they admire so much as strength, and 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
of the United Nations Charter, their influence for furthering
those principles will be immense and no one is likely to molest
them. If however they become divided or 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 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 her and
we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon
mankind. There never was a war in all 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 honoured today; but no one would listen and one
by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool. We surely
must not let that happen again. This can only be achieved by reaching
now, in 1946, 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 world instrument, supported 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 wartime, or because we have difficulty
in restarting our industries and export trade after six years
of passionate war effort, do not suppose that we shall not come
through these dark years of privation as we have come through
the glorious years of agony, or that half a century from now,
you will not see 70 or 80 millions of Britons spread about the
world and united in defence of our traditions, 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 us but for all, not
only for our time, but for a century to come.
