WE BEG TO DIFFER FROM GOEBBELS

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 215, 7 June 1941, Page 10

WE BEG TO DIFFER FROM GOEBBELS

Issue Of This Struggle Is Beyond Doubt AN ORDINARY MAN’S VIEW OF THE WAR (By Observer.) An offer to bet £5,000, or any part of that sum, that the war will be over within twelve months was made'” in April by Charles Read, Ltd., the bookmakers, of London and Glasgow. A small part of the total has already been taken up, a member of .the firm recently told the “Sunday Express.” “Recaiwe the result is beyond doubt, ice have not made the naminp oj the winner a condition of the bet,’’ he said. “We assume that all our clients, like ourselves, take that for granted. “It is ah even money wager that we are offering. All the £5,000 may be accepted; 'if it is we shall extend the total considerably. “It looks to us like a good bet, and we are going to make the most of it.”

Look again at the words 1 have put into italics. . They are arresting words, much more so than the real basis on tbe wager, which fixes a date for the ending of the war. “Because the result is lieyond doubt . . .” It just doesn’t enter the mind of us British that the war will have any ending but in the way we want it —total defeat of the enemy.. The date of the final victory is less important than the fact of victory, whatever happens to Messrs. Charles Read. Ltd’s £5OOO. Like Mr. Churchill, we don't know quite how and certainly not when, but we do know we are going to win.

This week the German official wireless. exulting over the episode of Crete —episode, because it is not the whole of the war. not by a long chalk—complained bitterly that “the British will not admit that they have been finally defeated in the war.” Defeated in the war? Who says so? Not a man or woman among the British. Dr. Goebbels is entitled to his opinion and we to ours. We beg to differ.

-We have been defeated in several important battles. We were beaten in many battles during .1914-18. But it is a characteristic of the British to take the long view of war—to treat defeat as episodic and to go on till we get our way. This is not hokum but history. If, however, our refusal to understand the mean lug of defeat is a strength, it is also a weakness. It is a strength'because it is the essence of morale, and a secure morale is a quality we must retain if we are going to win a long war. It is a weakness because it can induce a sentiment that we’ll muddle through somehow, but we'll get through anyhow. It can engender a sense of security which simply isn’t there unless it is toiled for, sweated for and bled for —to paraphrase the realistic Mr. Churchill. A lot of New Zealanders have yet to learn this elementary truth. They need the stool of complacency kicked from under them. It is right and fine to scorn the idea of defeat, but it is neither right nor fine to expect victory by sitting down and telling Dr. Goebbels to go where bad Nazis are going? or merely to have a fiver on with the London hookmakers and leave the rest to luck.

Frenchman Does His Bit.— ln this column last February appeared the reproduction of a very good war poster by a French artist, Henri Guignon, now a resident of New York. It depicted a British bulldog with the face of Mr. Churchill, on a background of the Union Jack. M. Guignon sent it to a friend in Dannevirke, who passed it ou to 'no. Since then another letter has reached him from Guignon, and’ here It is in part:— "I am glad to hear that you liked my ''ChurchiH" poster, and judging from the letters 1 have received from the British Dominions and colonies it has made quite a hit. But what pleased me most was the rather lengthy and very good write-up I received in 'The Dominion.’ 'Observer’s’ column was read by many of my colleagues ou the British Purchasing Commission, and one of the chiefs was’kind enough to write me a personal note of felicitations. I am very grateful to you and to my New Zealand admirers. I have not thanked ’The Dominion’ and 1 fear that it is now a bit late to do so. ... I managed to secure an extra copy of the paper from a colleague at the office, a New Zealander, so you see it is read here in New York. ... It may interest you to know that hundreds of my ‘Churchill' have been mailed to all parts of the British Empire, and it is most entertaining to read the letters of acknowledgment we are receiving, and we have collected a sizeable sum for the Brit tsh war relief fund. . . . What pleases me most is that I have thus been given an opportunity to do something really worth while for my British friends. .’. . There can be no doubt that with the help of the U.S.A, with her inexhaustible resources victory must be 'ours' in the end. Of course, time is the essence, and it is to be hoped that all necessary help will reach England in time. Meanwhile the fortunes of war vary, as vary they must, What has happened tn North Africa and in Greece must not discourage us. There will be laurels to be won on other battlefields and again we shall hear of the brave soldiers from ‘down under.’ They have already won the admiration of the whole of America, and we are anxious to see them triumph in the end side by side with the soldiers- of the Motherland. We here are all confident that England will win. so ‘thumbs up’ and long live England and the Empire!”

Beating Night Bomber. — Lord Halifax and other British spokesmen have hinted lately that Britain is well on the way to solving the problem of the enemy night bomber. For sufficient reasons nothing specific has been said, but here is a relevant item cabled to the Sydney "Daily Telegraph” from London :— Britain will soon use a new powerful radio weapon against day and night airraiders. British scientists, collaborating with research experts in Canada and the United States, have perfected the new weapon. The Canadian Defence Minister. Mr. Power, said in Ottawa on May 20:— "Details of the new device are, ot course, secret, but I can give some idea of the scheme. It involves the use ot many small radio sets, with which technicians will lie able to detect hostile aircraft. and direct anti-aircraft fire against them with deadly precision. The British Air -Ministry expects great things of this new invention." Britain is training 1000 expert radio mechanics to operate the device. Authoritative London opinion is that they will develop the invention to a point where it will become Britain’s main defence against air raiders.

Lindbergh Answered.— ln April l.’olonei Lindbergh made another isolationist address full of defeatism about democracy’s cause. He was pungently answered by the "New York Times” in the following leading article, which must be among the shortest and pithiest on record :— At one point, and nt only one point, in his address last night did Colonel Lindbergh have a good word io say for the British people in this hour of their struggle to survive. He believes "it will he a tragedy to the entire world if the British Empire collapses.” Therefore, runs the argument of a man who simi:in the name ot realism, let us take im risks to help prevent it from collapeiug.