EMPIRE’S VAST WAR EFFORT

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 179, 26 April 1941, Page 13

EMPIRE’S VAST WAR EFFORT

Appeal To All To Assist

An appeal to his listeners not to let the Anzacs of today down and to give generously to the £1,000,000 appeal for the provision of comforts and amenities for the fighting forces, was made in an address last night by Mr. Perry, M.L.C., deputy-chairman of the National Patriotic Fund Board. “To win this war the British Empire will require to make an effort greater than any nation has ever made and greater, perhaps, than the sum of all the struggles of all nations,” said Mr. Perryi “You are invited to help in that effort tonight—to show that your pulse has quickened, that your blood is coursing faster through your veins, that there is a spirit within you of exultation and of exultation for the honour and glory your own kith and kin are bringing to this country and to the parents who brought them into the world.

"The great majority of these men will return to us. They will need help —such help as cannot in all cases be provided our. of mere taxation. Our experience since the last war has taught us the value of patriotic funds for the men who come back. The drive for the £1,000,000 all-purposes appeal is on now —all purposes—the provision of comforts and amenities for members of our fighting forces both here and overseas and for their rehabilitation after the war.”

After referring to the noble deeds of the Anzacs during 1914-18 and to the great achievements of the new Anzacs as recorded in recent cables from Greece, Mr. Perry said: “It may well be that shortly our men will be fighting in the Pass of Thermopylae, where 24 centuries ago Leonidas and his Spartan warriors laid down their lives in defence of their country. They would have held the pass were it not that a traitor showed the enemy a secret path which enabled them to take te defenders in the rear. Someone betrayed—someone sold the- pass. Look to it that you do not betray these men cr yourselves—see to it that you do not L seU th§ pass/’

A new form of enemy mine is mentioned by a icsident of Bristol in writing to a friend in New Zealand. “The new mine the Hun is using is giving some trouble,” he says. “It is ‘acoustic,’ that is, instead of operating like the magnetic mine, it explodes by sound —the noise of the propeller or the rudder of a ship.”