THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 128, 24 February 1941, Page 6

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments —Reflections Intercession.

Lord, be Thou unto us at this time of need, a lower of strength, a place of refuge, and a defence in our day of trouble. Keep us calm and brave, because our trust is in Thee. Let Thy comfort support and strengthen us, Thy mercy uphold, and Thy grace guide us. and givens, if it please Time, deliverance from all adversity.

“Who trust them most shall most repent.”—-Chaucer.

“There is no use denying it, things are pretty grim. Not as regards food; from that point of view one would hardly know that there was a war on. The other night: they bombed a house full of expectant mothers. I had to deal with the casualties. 1 thought V was inured to most things, at times almost to the point, of callousness, but never Lave I seen anything so terrible or horrible as the results of this.” —A London woman doctor.

“Doing business is very difficult, as most of the staff, instead of getting in at nine o’clock, wander in somewhere between 10 and 1.1. Nobody particularly minds as travel is very difficult, either by train or by bus, as owing to bomb craters a pretty extensive diversion has to be made. It sometimes takes two hours to do a half-hour’s journey. While at work, needless to say there is au alert, and eventually a secondary warning, which means that everyone has to leave his job and rush down to the shelter straight away, which is in the basement. This is all taken in a spirit of fair fun, but it does hold up the work very much. The staff theu leave at 3.45 p.m. or 4 p.m. so that they can get home before the blackout starts and anti-aircraft guns start their nightly barrage.”—From the letter of an Irish visitor to London.

The New York “Bost” reprinted the following extract from one of its leading articles as a leader every day for a week: —“No one iu the United States, not even a Nazi agent, dares to say that we shall have to fight England if she wins the war. No one, not even the strongest isolationist, dares to deny that if England loses the war the United States will at best be under the continuous burden of having to safeguard itself through a great defence programme. Therefore, the” United States has a national interest in England’s success, because it means the- difference between a securely peaceful future and an uncertain future. No one can question the fact that enough American ’planes and shipping, supplied to England in time, can turn the tide. Therefore, we have in our own hands the means of shaping our future.”

“In tlie diplomatic sphere, Hitler can hope for little save negative support. In particular, Russia is most unlikely to co-operate in positive action against the Turks in order to immobilize them by the threat of war on two fronts. It is one thing for the Germans to make play with their armed strength to thrust Russia out of Europe into a role of passivity. It is quite another to use military coercion in order to secure Stalin as an active ally. The one method has succeeded, the other would court certain defeat. The lesson for Britain is plain enough. We need not be unduly terrified by Germany’s picturesque imaginings of a Eurasian continental land bloc in league against the Democracies. On the other hand, the visit of M. Molotov to Berlin will, it is hoped, once and for all cure the rose red optimists of their belief that a wholesale change of Ministers here at home, coupled with the adoption of some startling ideology abroad, would win us Russia’s active collaboration. Russia, like every other national State, looks first, to her own security—from which it follows that she will not look to us till we can provide much more convincing evidence of our ability to defeat the Reich.” —“The Economist,” London.

“The call for horses has come out of the very campaign which demonstrated the machine nt its deadliest. The German conquest of Boland appeared as a smashing victory for the mechanized engines of war, the aeroplane, the tank and the combat car, but without the horse the brilliant strategy of the blitzkrieg would not have sufficed to conquer the Polish army. Germany moved into Poland with more than 200,000 horses. Every infantry regiment had more than 500 of them. Of the 240 divisions available to the Third Reich when the blitzkrieg hit France and the Low Countries, more than 200 used animals for draught and transportation. Nazi propaganda photographs, including pictures of the Paris occupation, showed the presence of horses iu large numbers. In invading Poland on the ground, the army first sent infantry divisions; a Germany infantry division calls for more than 3800 animals. Behind the combat ears rode the horse cavalry to consolidate and hold Hie captured terrain. Theu came more infantry, afoot or on truck, supported by horse-drawn artillery and animal transportation to consolidate the gains. Germany had used the horse in its well-established military role. It had remembered the dictum of Ludendorff, who attributed his failure on the Western Front to the lack of cavalry: ‘Without cavalry it is impossible to reap tlie fruits of victory.' Within the frame of changed conditions, that dictum has not been forgotten in other blitzkrieg drives.”—Major It. Guisburg in the American “Mercury.” » Salute. Salute the sacred dead, Who went and who return not. Say not so I We rather seem the dead that stayed belli mJ. Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their highhearted ways, Beautiful evermore, and with the rays Of moru on their white shields of Expectation. —J. It. Lowell.