The Struggle For Peace

aims the improvement of the lot of his fellow-creatures.
In such meetings personal contacts are made which may prove
of the greatest value.
" In the days before the date at which most of our modern
history books begin it was possible for a nation to live in
isolation and to develop its civilisation without interference
from outside. But to-day we must all of us take account of
our neighbours, and unless we can find some understanding
of their ways of thought we shall never make real progress
or secure stability for ourselves. For my part I prefer our
British political system, with the wide extent of freedom which
it gives to the individual to any form of government which
subjects the will of the individual completely to the authority
of the State, which means, of course, to the authority of those
who for the time being represent the State. But it does seem
to me entirely contrary to the spirit of democracy to attempt
to deny to any other nation the right to adopt any form of
government they may prefer. It seems to me all the more
inappropriate to do so because history shows us that forms
of government do not remain unchanged. Alterations,
modifications, even reversals, have taken place in every
generation in some country or another, and there is no reason
to suppose that even to-day any of us have reached the final
and unalterable stage.
"After those preliminary observations I should like to
turn to the foreign policy of his Majesty's Government, and
I shall make no apology for repeating things that have often
been said before, because there are some people who persist
in saying that they have never been told what the foreign
policy of the Government is. In the first speech that I made
after I became Prime Minister I summed up the aims of His
Majesty's Government under four heads. The first was to
maintain peace; the second, to make this country so strong
that she should be treated everywhere with respect; the
third was to promote the prosperity of industry, and thus
provide employment for our people; and the fourth was to
work steadily for the improvement of the conditions of the
people. Those still remain the aims of the Government,
and the policy of the Government must be adapted from time
to time to existing conditions in order to adiieve thec^ I