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Full text of "The Struggle For Peace"

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grant belligerent rights to General Franco, that we were going
to betray our friends and allies in France; and when we came
back without having done any of these things they changed
their complaint and they said it was not worth while to have
made the visit at all because nothing had come of it. Evidently
if it is necessary to please them we have got our work cut out
over it.
" It is not true that nothing came out of it. We did not go
to Rome to make bargains, but to get to know Italian statesmen
better, to ascertain by personal discussion what was their
point of view, and to make sure that they understood ourselves.
We accomplished all that, and, although there was complete
frankness of speech on both sides, although we did not convert
or attempt to convert one another to our own point of view
on any subject on which we might differ, yet I can say that
we came away better friends than we were when we went there.
" And something more than that came out of it. From the
moment we entered upon Italian soil till the moment we left
it, we were the objects of the most remarkable, spontaneous,
universal demonstration of welcome that I have ever witnessed.
" It was a demonstration which, it seemed to me, signified
two things. In the first place, it brought out the genuine
friendliness of the Italian people for the people of this country.
Nobody could make any mistake about that. In the second
place, it demonstrated as clearly as possible the intense, the
passionate desire of the Italian people for peace—a desire
which is matched by an equal feeling in this country.
" That feeling is not confined to the peoples of Great
Britain and Italy. You find exactly the same thing in France.
You find it again in Germany, and you find it, I believe, in
every country in the world. I do not exclude the possibility
that these feelings of the peoples may not always be shared by
their Governments, and I recognize that it is with Govern-
ments and not peoples that we have to deal.
" Nevertheless, let us cultivate the friendship of the peoples,
and that can be done by individuals and by traders as well as
by more official representatives. Let us make it clear to them
that we do not regard them as potential foes, but rather as
human beings like ourselves with whom we are always
prepared to talk on terms of equality, with an open mind,