British Foreign Policy, United Press, San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 1948.

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SCARBOROUGH, England, May 20. (U.P.)-Foreign Secretary Bevin said today that, while Britain is against any steps for an aggressive war against Russia, she is not prepared to sit idly by and watch the Communists take over Western Europe.

Bevin told the 47th annual conference of the British Labor party that Britain must proceed “to develop pacts of security where we can-and not wait for final agreement among everybody.”

He said Britain intended to stay in Berlin “whatever the provocation,” and appealed, indirectly to Russia to halt the “dastardly” civil war in Greece.”

“I am against any active steps to carry out an aggressive war against Russia,” Bevin said. “I don’t believe this war is inevitable. But the danger of there a war is likely to arise is in the hands of Russia, it is in the war of nerves which Russia is conducting.”

POLICIES BACKED

Despite leftwing opposition, delegates to the Labor party conference gave overwhelming support to a resolution approving Bevin’s foreign policy and the domestic policies of the Labor government.

Bevin said Russia’s “war of nerves” started against Turkey and then was carried out against Greece. He said the lift of a finger “from a place you know” would halt the civil war in Greece.

“I don’t think such a war of nerves does any good to peace,” he said. “I think those who started it, might stop it.”

Referring to the recent diplomatic exchange between Soviet Foreign Minister Holotov and U. S. Ambassador Walter Dedell Smith, Bevin said he thought the calling off of Russia’s “war of nerves” would do “more for the cause of peace than replying to any letters.”

Bevin disclosed that Britain might have had to ask the United States for another loan if U. S. Secretary of State Marshall had not announced plans for the European Recovery Program in June.

“A year ago, during the Labor party conference at Margate, I really felt the position might arise in which we might have to apply for another loan from the United States,” Bevin said. “There was nowhere else to turn. “Then in June Mr. Marshall made his famous speech at Harvard.”

Bevin said Greece’s neighbors were trying to make the country into another Czchoslovakia. He said some 500,000 people in Greece were homeless because of activities engineered by Communists.

“Children are being abducted to foreign countries,” he said. “We cannot ignore this terror. Yet the lift of a finger from a place you know would stop all this … civil was as an instrument of foreign policy is a dastardly thing … and it ought to be stopped. I appeal to those responsible to stop it.”

Bevin called on the Council of Foreign Ministers to agree to an immediate Japanese peace conference.

“No one wants those islands to live in a cesspool of poverty,” he said. “… We want all countries who participated in the war against Japan to attend. Let the Foreign Ministers Council agree to have a peace conference right away among 15 to 16 nations, then we could get down to a peace settlement.”

MILITARY COMMITTEE

Bevin deplored the failure of the United Nation to establish an effective military committee. He said there could be no basis for confidence in the world until the various nations commit themselves to a program of collective security.

“The (U. N.) Military Committee is a complete failure,” he said. “And I won’t say who is to blame Meanwhile, we must proceed to develop regional pacts of collective security where he can-and not wait for agreement among everyone. Let those who want come in.”

Bevin said the Western European Union defense talks were not directed at any nation in particular. He said the Union was designed to give governments a means of protecting their peoples in case of an attack. He said the Western Union “constituted” Britain’s foreign policy.