On August 14th 1941, it was announced that Mr Churchill and President Roosevelt had met at sea and after conferences lasting three days, had drawn up a declaration of the joint peace aims of Great Britain and the United States. We give below the text of this momentous document, with some later elaborations by Mr Churchill, and the supporting resolution endorsed by the Inter Allied Council.
Declaration of Principles, Known As The Atlantic Charter, Issued By The Prime Minister Of The United Kingdom And The President Of The United States Of America, August 14th 1941.
The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr Churchill , representing his Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, being met together ,deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hope for a better future for the world.
First,
Their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other.
Second,
They desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned.
Third,
They respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live, and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.
Fourth,
they will endeavour, with due respect to their existing obligations to further the enjoyment by all States great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity.
Fifth,
They desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all improved labour standards, economic advancement and social security
Sixth,
After the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.
Seventh,
Such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance.
Eighth,
They believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force.
Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea, or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten ,or may threaten, aggression outside their frontiers, they believe pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential.
They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.
Mr Churchill in a Broadcast Speech August 24th 1941.
We had the idea when we met the President and I that, without attempting to draw final and formal peace aims and war aims, it was necessary to give all peoples, and especially the oppressed and conquered peoples, a simple rough and ready wartime, statement of the goal towards which the British Commonwealth and the United States mean to make their way, and thus make way for others to march with them upon a road which will certainly be painful, and may be long.
There are, however two distinct and marked differences in this joint declaration from the attitude adopted by the Allies during the letter part of the last war, and no one should overlook them.
The United States and Great Britain do not now assume that there will never be any more war again.
On the contrary, we intend to take ample precautions to prevent its renewal in any period we can foresee, suitably protected ourselves.
The second difference is this, that instead of trying to ruin German trade by all kinds of additional trade barriers and hindrances, as was the mood of 1917, we have definitely adopted the view that it is not in the interests of the world and of our two countries that any large nation should be unprosperous or shut out from the means of making a decent living for itself and its people by its industry and enterprise.
These are far reaching changes of principle upon which all countries should ponder.
Mr Churchill in a Speech in the House of Commons September 9th 1941
I have as the House knows hitherto consistently deprecated the formulation of peace aims or war aims, however you put it, by his Majesty’s Government at this stage.
I deprecate it at this time when the end of the war is not in sight, when the conflict sways to and fro with alternating fortunes and when conditions and associations at the end of the war are unforeseeable.
But a joint declaration by Great Britain and the United States is an event of a totally different nature.
Although the principles in the declaration , and much of the language, have long been familiar to the British and American democracies, the fact that it is a united declaration sets up a milestone or a monument which needs only the stroke of victory to become a permanent part of the history of human progress….
Questions have been asked and will no doubt be asked as to exactly what is implied by this or that point, and explanations have been invited.
It is a wise rule that when two parties have agreed to a statement one of them shall not thereafter without consultation with the other seek to put special strained interpretations upon this or that passage.
I propose therefore to speak today only in an exclusive sense.
First the joint declaration does not try to explain how the broad principles proclaimed by it are to be applied to each and every case which will have to be dealt with when the war comes to an end….
Secondly the joint declaration does not qualify in any way the various statements of policy which have been made from time to time about the development of constitutional government in India, Burma, or other parts of the British Empire.
We are pledged by the declaration of August, 1940 to help India to obtain free and equal partnership, of course, to the fulfilment of obligations arising from our long connexion with India and our responsibilities to its many free races and interests.
Burma is also covered by our considered policy of establishing Burmese self government and by the measures already in progress.
At the Atlantic meeting we had in mind primarily restoration of the sovereignty, self government and national life of the States and nations of Europe now under the Nazi yoke, and the principles which would govern any alterations in the territorial boundaries of the countries which would have to be made.
So that is quite a separate problem from the progressive evolution of self governing institutions in the regions and peoples which owe allegiance to the British Crown.
Resolution Passed By The Inter Allied Council At St James’s Palace, September 24th 1941.
The Governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the U.S.S.R. and Yugoslavia, and representatives of General de Gaulle, leader of Free Frenchman, having taken noteof the Declaration recently drawn up by the President of the United States and by the Prime Minister Mr Churchill on behalf of his Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, now make known their adherence to the common principles of policy set forth in that Declaration and their intention to cooperate to the best of their ability in giving effect to them.
