22 AUGUST 1941, Page 14

WAR- AND • PEACE-AIMS

Sut,—In view of the -hopes which have been expressed that non. belligerent countries will subscribe to the disinterested declaration of our aims in this wgz- of " right against wrong," it is as well to remind ourselves that peoples and Governments are more likely to be swayed by self-interest than by sentiment. At the outbreak of this war Italian friends told me that, while they liked the English better than Germans, their interests lay in siding with the latter. The British would not devastate their country as the Germans most certainly would : the fate of Poland was too recent and clear a warning The same feeling must be behind Turkey's reluctance to come in with us. She will let through the Dardanelles an armed Italian oil-tanker to bring out oil, but refuses passage to our warships and transports 'which might by now have turned the scale against the Germans in the S.W. Ukraine. An invitation for all to come in and share the economic advantages of a great federation of free-trade countries might be much more attractive ; and such a federation would be the surest guarantee of continual peace.—Yours faithfully, P. F. BYSON. /9 Dean Street, Blackpool.