BRITAIN'S WAR EFFORT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 194, 18 August 1942, Page 4

BRITAIN'S WAR EFFORT

IN the summer of 1910, after the collapse of France left the United * Kingdom in mortal peril, few people in the English-speaking world had reason not to know of Britain's war effort. All the world heard of the prodigious exertions of her people to restore the arms and equipment that had been lost, to build armies and planes and ships on a greater scale than ever before, and while doing so to prepare with what was then available to meet an invasion. In what Mr. Churchill called "the supreme crisis of its life Britain had the whole world s admiring attention. But, when the crisis passed, there was a lessening of interest. Partly because people had been led to expect too much too soon there was disappointment and a tendency to criticise both the war and the industrial leaders on the ground that they were not showing an aggressive spirit. This was fostered by a general lack of appreciation of the fact that while Britain had to begin to arm, train and equip her men all over again after Dunkirk, Germany's power was not only unbroken But was being built up steadily from the looted resources of the occupied countries. Vague beliefs in the shortages of oil. foodstuffs, clothing for soldier* and civilians, steel for armaments and so on bred an undue optimism, and with it an unreasoning demand for attack when anything Short, of success would spell Irretrievable disaster. But the nation's leaders, who knew more than their critics, knew that the only path was one of careful planning, the hard road of building up a new army •quipping it and training it for war, while on land, sea and air a powerful enemy sought to smash every effort. Under the stress of disaster when France failed Britain was naturally fired into a desperate ?h»t r U°J;® bUl,f i h T *Jt might well have been anticipated thai that would slacken as the peril seemed to recede a little. It has not slackened, but instead has gone on from strength to strength and the figures quoted by Sir Harry Batterbee yesterday will impress upon everyone with an open mind the courage, self-sacrificeand Kmtermination with which the Mother Country is overcoming he™ initial disadvantages and building up a strength which will, with the assistance !? n? overt hrow all the forces of evil which are arrayed against C , nHst V otal of 22,000,000 in war work, to train four to five In °£i me i\i 0 ai 7 ns ' t0 organise the munition supplies for them to feed and clothe them while at the same time building ships to lepjace those sunk, to build and man an air fleet which has turnprl '•ITS' to Offence a foe who had an overwhelming advan ne»u # ' n P' anes a °d 1" factories for their construction futle has*been e^l?^ t them, C arvf n the t revefatkm^o/slr'^a^'^^'tterbee