THE CHINA MAIL, DECEMBER 24, 1940.
brary, Supreme Court
Page
ITALIANS INVITED TO THINK
Mr. Churchill Suggests Disavowal Of Mussolini
Need Destruction ITALIAN
Of Italy Go On
WHIP TO CABINET RANK
His Majesty the King held a Privy Council at Buckingham Palace yes- terday morning at which Mr. Anthony Eden receiv- ed his seals of office as the new Foreign Secretary and Captain Margesson as the Secretary for War.
They kissed hands on their ap- pointment.
Mr. Eden took over at the For- eign Office yesterday. He is no stranger there, for he was For- eign Secretary from 1935 to 1938.
is return is widely welcomed by the British press, and Viscount Cranborne, who will go to the House of Lords us Government spokesman on foreign pohey, will renew his collaboration with Mr. Eden, for from 1935 to 1938 he wus Under-Secretary for Foreign
Affairs.
He resigned with Mr. Eden be- cause neither supported Mr. Chamberlain's policy of appeasing Italy,
The choice of Captain Mar- gesson is somewhat unusual, as ne has been Chief Government Whip for nine years and has never yet held Cabinet rank.
of
His organising ability and strong sense of discipline are expected to fit him well for the post Secretary of State for War. Reuter.
GENEROUS GIFT OF MALAYAN CHINESE
APOLOGY
A DRAMATIC APPEAL TO THE ITALIAN NATION TO DIS FOR DEFEAT
AVOW MUSSOLINI AND TO FOLLOW THE HOUSE OF SA- VOY WAS MADE BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL, BROADCASTING FROM LONDON LAST NIGHT.
Mr. Churchill also revealed for the first time that messages had passed between him and the Duce just prior to Italy's entry into the war messages which disclosed that Italy only took up arms against Britain because of her treaty with Germany.
"To-night," said Mr. Churchill, "I speak to the Italian people, and I speak to you from London, the heart of the British Islands and of the British Commonwealth and Empire.
"I speak to you what diplomats call words of great truth and res- We are at war-that is a pect. very strange and terrible thought.
"Whoever would imagine, un. til the last fow melancholy years, that the British and Ita lian nations would be trying to destroy one another?
"We have always been friends. We were the champions of the Italian risorgimento. We were partisans of Garibaldi, Mazzini and Cavour.
to-
Liberal Mövément
"All that great movement wards liberty of the Italian na- tion which lighted the 19th Cen- tury was aided and was hailed by the British Parliament and public.
|
the authority of the Vatican and of the Roman Catholic Church, against the wishes of the Italian people, who had no lust for this inheritors war, has arrayed the of ancient Rome upon the side of the pagan barbarians.
may happen on the Continent, England will go on to the end, even quite alone, as we have done before, and I believe with some assurance that we shall be aided in increasing measure by the United States, and indeed by all Americas,
"This is the gist of a letter sent to Signor Mussolini when became Prime Minister.
Choice Open
"I make no comment upon the Duce's answer. It speaks for itself. Anyone can see who it was that wanted peace and who It was that meant to have war.
"One man and only one man was resolved to pledge Italy after all these years of strain and effort into the whirlpool of war, "What is the position of Italy to-day? Where is it that the Duce has led his distrusting peo- theple after eighteen years of ducea
torial power?
Tragedy Of History "There is the tragedy of Itallan history and there stands criminal who has wrought it.
"What is the defence that is put forward for his action? It Is, of course, the quarrel about Sanctions and Abyssinia. Let us lock at that.
"Together after the last war Italy and Britain both signed the Covenant of the League of Na- tions, which forbid all parties to that Covenant to make war upon "Our fathers and our grand- each other or upon fellow mem- fathers longed to see Italy freed bers of the League, and bound from the Austrian yoke and to all signatories to come to the ald see all minor barriers in Italy of any member who was attack- swept away so that the Italian ed by another. people and their fair land might lake their honoured place as one of the leading powers upon the Continent and as a brilliant and gifted member of the family of Europe and of Christendom.
"We have hever been your foes until now. In the last war, against the barbarous. Huns, we were, your comrades.
"For fifteen years after that war
AS A RESULT OF A BIG DRIVE BY THE CHINESE COM- we were your friends.
"Although the institutions which MUNITY OF MALAYA A FORT-
werf NIGHT AGO, £30,000 HAS BEEN You adopted after the war RAISED FOR THE LORD MA- YORIS AIR-RAID DISTRESS FUND.
•
"Presently Abyssinia came knocking at the door asking to be a member. We British advised against it. We doubted whether they had reached a stage in their development which warranted their inclusion, but it was Musso lini who insisted that Abyssinia should become a member of the League, and who therefore bound himself and bound you and us to respect their covenanted rights.
What Need ?
not akin to ours and diverged, as we think, from the sovereign_im
"I declare and my words will pulses which had commanded the go far-that nothing that happen- unity of Italy, we could still walked in that Abyssinian quarrel
The money will be sent to Lon-together in peace and goodwill. don shortly. Reuter.
CAN'T SLEEP NIGHTS? A hot cup of Cocomalt be- fore retiring indoces sound- and restful sleep.
Gcomalt)
2APB2
Amity And Esteem
"Many thousands of our people
can count for or justify the dead- ly war which has now broken out between -us.
Then the great war, between dwelt with you in italy. We liked the British and French democra each other, we got on well to-cies and the Prussian militarists
gether. There services, there
was estcom.
were reciprocal was amity, there'
"And now we are at war; now. we are condemned to work each other's ruin. Our aviators tcaring and will tear your African! Empire to shreds and tatters.
nre
or
·
Nazi dictatorship began again... "Where was the need of Italy
to Intervene? Where was the need to strike at prostrate France? Where was the need to invade Egypt, which is under- British protection? `
"We are only now at the "We were content with Italian beginring, of this sombre tala. neutrality. During the first eight. Who can say where, it will end? months of the war we paid great "Presently we shall be forced deference to Italian interests. to come to much closer grips.- .*
One Man
But this was all put down to fear.
Now that I have taken up my office as Prime Minister and Min- "How has all this come aboutister of Defence, I look back to
"What hard choice is open now? It is to stand up to the battery of the whole British Empire on the sea, in the air, and in Africa, and to the vigorous counter-at- tack of Greece.
I
The remarkable "apo- logy” issued.by the Italiam' news agency in the form of reports from Marshal Graziani on the opera- tions in the Western De- sert has aroused some
comment in military cir- cles in London.
The Italian High Command is at pains to say that the Fascist troops · resisted nobly but the weight of attack was too much."
A similar tribute is paid to the. R.A.F, when the Italian High Command says that they could not make the full weight of the Italian air force felt because if bad wea- ther.
No explanation is given why the weather should have been worse for the Italians than it was for the R.A.F. In the same sky!
Graziani's point that he was not taken by surprise only makes the Italian defence seem even inefficient.
It is not
more
should say he had adequate sup- clear why Graziani
plies of guns to deal with any movement from the south when in. fact the British attacked from that direction.
- Reuter.
NÁVAL BUILDING IN CANADA
"There is one man and one only who has led you there.
Britain has placed orders in leave this unfolding until Canada for another 12 mine- the day comes-as
come it will sweepers. This brings the total -when the italian nation will; number of naval vessels to ..once more take the shaping of built in Canadian shipyards
its own fortunes."-Reuter. to 120-Reuter,
BRITISH BEER
IS
BEST
McEwan's
Red Label
SPARKLING BEER
ond what is it all for? Italians, desire to speak words of goodwill our meeting in Rome and feet a I will tell you the truth.;-~
"It is all because of one man. to you, as chief of the Italian na- One man and one man alone has ranged the Italian people in a swiftly widened gulf. deadly struggle against the Bri- tish Empire and has deprived Italy of the sympathy and in- timacy of the United States of America.
tion, across what seems to be a BREWED
“That he is a great man I do not deny; but that after eighteen yokra, of unbridled power 'he han led, your country to the
denjed, by none.
tall one man who, the ? Crown guld” Rogi Family, against the Pope and all
Is It Too Late ?
"Is it too late to stop a river of blood from flowing between the British and Italian peoples?
**We can, no doubt, inflict priev 'buća infuries upon jörte, daßßher gitat imiul? anchy other surully, andi
with our strife.
"It is idle to predict the course' Kürdal battles noui raving in: pe, but I a
sure that what
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