I am honoured today by being received in your ancientuniversity and by the adress which had been given to me on yourbehalf and which I greatly value.

I wish to speak to you today about the tragedy of Europe.This noble continent, comprising on the whole the fairest and themost cultivated regions of the earth, enjoying a temperate andequable climate, is the home of all the great parent races of thewestern world. It is the fountain of Christian faith and Christianethics. It is the origin of most of the culture, the arts,philosophy and science both of ancient and modern time. If Europewere once united in the sharing of its common inheritance, therewould be no limit to the happiness, to the prosperity and the glorywhich its three or four million people would enjoy. Yet it is fromEurope that have sprung that series of frightful nationalisticquarrels, originated by the Teutonic nations in their rise topower, which we have seen in this twentieth century and even in ourown lifetime, wreck the peace and mar the prospects of allmankind.

And what is the plight to which Europe has been reduced?Some of the smaller States have indeed made a good recovery, butover wide areas a vast quivering mass of tormented, hungry,care-worn and bewildered human beings gape at the ruins of theircities and their homes, and scan the dark horizons for the approachof some new peril, tyranny or terror. Among the victors there is ababel of voices; among the vanquished the sullen silence ofdespair. That is all that Europeans, grouped in so many ancientstates and nations, that is all that the Germanic races have got bytearing each other to pieces and spreading havoc far and wide.Indeed but for the fact that the great Republic across the AtlanticOcean has at length realised that the ruin or enslavement of Europewould involve their own fate as well, and has stretched out handsof succour and of guidance, but for that the Dark Ages would havereturned in all their cruelty and squalor. Gentlemen, they maystill return.

Yet all the while there is a remedy which, if it weregenerally and spontaneously adopted by the great majority of peoplein many lands, would as if by a miracle transform the whole scene,and would in a few years make all Europe, or the greater part ofit, as free and as happy as Switzerland is today. What is thissovereign remedy? It is to recreate the European Family, or as muchof it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which itcan dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kindof United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds ofmillions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopeswhich make life worth living. The process is simple. All that isneeded is the resolve of hundreds of millions of men and women todo right instead of wrong and to gain as their reward blessinginstead of cursing.

Much work, Ladies and Gentlemen, has been done upon thistask by the exertions of the Pan-European Union which owes so muchto Count Coudenhove-Kalergi and which commanded the services of thefamous French patriot and statesman Aristide Briand. There is alsothat immense body of doctrine and procedure, which was brought intobeing amid high hopes after the first world war. I mean the Leagueof Nations. The League of Nations did not fail because of itsprinciples or conceptions. It failed because these principles weredeserted by those States who had brought it into being. It failedbecause the governments of those days feared to face the facts, andact while time remained. This disaster must not be repeated. Thereis therefore much knowledge and material with which to build; andalso bitter dear bought experience to stir the builders.

I was very glad to read in the newspapers two days agothat my friend President Truman had expressed his interest andsympathy with this great design. There is no reason why a regionalorganization of Europe should in any way conflict with the worldorganization of the United Nations. On the contrary, I believe thatthe larger synthesis will only survive if it is founded uponcoherent natural groupings. There is already a natural grouping inthe western hemisphere. We British have our own Commonwealth of Nations. These do not weaken, on the contrary they strengthen, theworld organization. They are in fact its main support. And whyshould there not be a European group which could give a sense ofenlarged patriotism and common citizenship to the distractedpeoples of this turbulent and mighty continent? And why should itnot take its rightful place with other great groupings and help toshape the onward destinies of men? In order that this should beaccomplished there must be an act of faith in which millions offamilies speaking many languages must consciously takepart.

We all know that the two world wars through which we havepassed arose out of the vain passion of a newly-united Germany toplay the dominating part in the world. In this last struggle crimesand massacres have been committed for which there is no parallelsince the invasion of the Mongols in the fourteenth century and noequal at any time in human history. The guilty must be punished.Germany must be deprived of the power to rearm and make anotheraggressive war. But when all this has been done, as it will bedone, as it is being done, then there must be an end toretribution. There must be what Mr. Gladstone many years ago called"a blessed act of oblivion". We must all turn our backs upon thehorrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot affordto drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds andrevenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past. If Europeis to be saved from infinite misery, and indeed from final doom,there must be this act of faith in the European Family and this actof oblivion against all the crimes and follies of thepast.

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