The Dominion. TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1941. THE WAR IN FULL PERSPECTIVE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 181, 29 April 1941, Page 6

The Dominion. TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1941. THE WAR IN FULL PERSPECTIVE

Mr. Churchill’s latest review of the situation gives us the war in full perspective. Coming at a time when our difficulties in the Mediterranean are the focal point of public attention, it is at once a recall to the larger essentials of the struggle and a tonic to the Empire. One of these essentials to the winning of the war is the morale of the British people. Nowhere has this been so severely tested, and its fibre, courage, and resolution so triumphantly vindicated, as in the Mother Country itself. The shocks of the conflict the enemy air raids with their destruction and toll of human hie, the ebb and flow of the fortunes of war on land and sea, the countless personal hardships and exertions inseparable from this life-and-death struggle, all the factors, in fact, which in the enemy s calculations have been reckoned upon to break the resistance of the P eo P le have left their spirit undaunted. That is the British Prime Minister’s first important point, and it seems to him the most vital asset in these difficult days. . Whatever the enemy may accomplish in the Near and Middle East, whatever fresh complications and dangers he may be able to create elsewhere by diplomatic trickery or force of arms, there are two objects he must achieve or lose the war. One is a victory in the Atlantic. The other is the successful invasion of Britain. Io defeat these objects, declares Mr. Churchill, is. the main task to be kept in view. In other theatres of the war the tide for the time being may be for us or against us*, but successes in these theatres would give no guarantee of ultimate victory if the enemy is able to strike a mortal blow at the heart of the Empire. Reverses to our arms, in distant centres of conflict, may and will occur from time to time, but will be of no real or permanent profit to Hitler and his hordes if he fails in his vital objectives. That is the British leader’s second important point, and it will be well for us, in following the course of the war, with the shocks and disappointments inseparable from a conflict being waged on so vast a scale and in so many theatres, to keep that point clearly in mind. It is a conflict which, from its very nature, and the tremendous issues involved, demands from all of us the long view and tne supreme assurance of ultimate victory. Recall our reactions after the collapse of Holland, and Belgium, and France, and the most serious threat that Britain then had ever faced in her history. Yet, as Mr. Churchill reminds us. nothing that is happening now is compaiable in gravity with the difficulties we have passed through in the last year. And we have, he confidently assures us, two vital essentials to victory to sustain us through the trials that yet may come—an unchallengeable command of the sea and. looming ahead, our decisive superiority in the air.