ODDS AGAINST GERMAN CONQUEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 154, 1 July 1940, Page 7

ODDS AGAINST GERMAN CONQUEST.

BRITAIN STRONG.

All Forces Ready To Resist Invasion. ATTEMPT EXPECTED SOON. British Official Wireless. (Received 1.30 p.m.) RUGBY, June 30. Mr. Chamberlain, broadcasting, said: "The first thing I want to say is that all members of the War Cabinet are working together in complete harmony and agreement. Anyone who lends himself to German propaganda by listening to idle tales about disunion among us, or who imagines that any of us would consent to enter upon peace negotiations with the enemy is just playing the Nazi game. We are a solid and united nation, which would rather go down to ruin than admit of domination by the Nazis.

"But we intend, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, to attack our enemies and meet their attacks upon us with resolution and in a fighting spirit which become a great people. Although we are left alone to defend freedom and civilisation, brave men and women will only be braced \>j the knowledge that we must now rely upon ourselves, and under Providence win through, as we have won through before.

"I do not for a moment underrate the military might which overwhelmed the gallant French Army and reduced France to its present lamentable position. We all know the enemy is now free to fall upon us. Xo doubt the air raids we have lately experienced are only a prelude to something more eerious, for the Nazis are staking everything upon the chance of winning a short war. Invasion Imminent? "We know they are even now completing preparations for an attempt to invade this country. At any moment that invasion may be launched by sea and air, but the enemy is divided from us by a more formidable anti-tank obstacle than any yet encountered, namely, the sea. Our Navy, which is still growing, is vastly superior to the German, and our warships must be eluded or driven off before any seaborne expedition can land on our shores.

"Do not forget that, even if an expedition were safely landed, it has still to be sjpplied, in the main at any rate by 'sea, with all that a modern army requires, to fight on in the face of fierce resistance.

"Then consider the position in the air. Our Air Force is stronger in numbers to-day than it has been since the beginning of the war, and at the same time is superior in equipment, training and morale to that of the enemy. That Air Force would have to be destroyed, or driven off, before the enemy could land safely from sea or from the air. Greatest Army in History. "Then we have our land forces. At this moment there is a larger army in this country than there has ever been durmg the whole of our history, an army of which a large part are seasoned troops, who have not only met the enemy already in battle, but felt their own superiority to him. The army j s every day growing stronger in numbers, in preparedness and in equipment. u L

"Lastly, we have tnet other great army, the men and women who are putting their whole strength into the task of furnishing us with the weapons and food we need, or who are devoting themselves to the work of civil defence. One and all they are animated by the same fighting spirit, which will never give in.

"If the enemy does try to invade this country we will fight him in the air and on the sea. We will fight him on the beaches with every weapon we have. He may manage here and there to break through. If lie does we will fight him on every road, in every village and in every house until he or we are utterly destroyed. If he is driven to evacuate, as we had to evacuate from France, there will be no friendly fleet waiting for him off the beaches *of England," but death and disaster.

"I have given you materiel reasons why we should be able to beat off any enemy attack, but we have something even stronger on our side. We shall be fighting for our own hearths and homes, and fighting with the conviction that our cause is a cause of justice and peace against cruelty and persecution, or ri<*ht against wrong—a cause that surely has the blessing of Almighty God. It would be a faint heart indeed that could doubt our success."