THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 59, 3 December 1941, Page 6

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments—Reflections You can achieve victory better by deliberation than by wrath.—Synus.

“Hitler relies on his own army and he has conquered 18 countries that relied on another's.’' —Mr. Walter Winchell, in the New York “Daily Mirror.”

“By an order issued by the Ottawa Government strikes in Canadian defence industries will be illegal unless authorized ’by the vote of a majority of the workers in an election supervised by the Labour Department of the Dominion.” —New York “Sun.”

“The arena *in which Hitler’s longrange bombers, U-boats, surface raiders and minelayers can now operate against Britain’s supply lines without risking attack by the U.S. Patrol has been reduced to an area east of Iceland, shrunk now to about the size of the Caribbean Sea. Britain’s Fleet can take up convoy duty now just east of Iceland, as the merchant ships go into what the grimy, bearded men of the British Red Ensign call ‘the ’ot Triangle.’ Every inch of that ‘triangle’ is within easy range of interceptors and bombers based in Britain.”—New York “Daily Mirror.”

“In winter in Russia the ‘going’ for motorized vehicles is actually much easier than in the early spring and autumn, when the ground is saturated and not frozen bard. This I found from experience as one of the earliest motorists in Russia! With track vehicles such as tanks far greater areas of land, like peat bogs and riveßs with their marshy banks, are opened out for the mechanized armies, allowing greater freedom of movement. Especially does this apply to the peat lands round Moscow, Vladimir and Iver.—Mr. H. H. Charnock, in a letter to the “Manchester Guardian.”

It will be said by his critics that the President exceeded his powers in committing the United States to a collaboration which extends beyond this war into the post-war world. They are mistaken. He has, indeed, made a great commitment, but so did. President Monroe when, after negotiations with Great Britain, he committed the young and feeble republic to the defence of the Western Hemisphere against the allied absolutisms of Europe. The action of Monroe was audacious to the point of, recklessness. Yet it was right in Its conception of the American interests, right in its basic understanding.”—Walter Lippmann; New York “HeraldTribune.” •

“The German Military Command has issued a decree that if there are any further cases of assault on German officers, all Frenchmen .under arrest will be treated as hostages—that is, shot. But in a country like France punitive action on this scale defeats itself. If Frenchmen are going to\be liable to penalties for the crime of being anti-German, the police will be arresting 90 per cent, of the popula-tion-all except the small stratum of men of property, business magnates wedded to appeasement, and the Fascist groups who have acquired a vested interest in the present catspaw regime. With their profound sense of human dignity, the French are the last people to put up with dragooning. Nevertheless, Darlan has no choice but to go ahead. Every day of the Russians’ fierce resistance brings Hitler nearer the point when he must embark on his long-expected diversion in the Western Mediterranean.”— The “Manchester Guardian.”

“I am convinced that the revolution must go much further than the most drastic economic change. It must involve the individual. Man must be released from his present inhibitions, he must be freed from his fears and prejudices, he must be reborn, if the new world is to be a better world. The revolution must be a religious awakening if it’is not to wither before the onslaught of its enemies. This is a truth which many of us are at last beginning to appreciate. We have seen in the Nazi-Fascist horror what happens when economic social changes are launched without regard to the spiritual values. Not a few of those who had sought salvation in the Communist faith have learnt that Communism, as it has been practised and preached, was lacking in its attitude to life. It is this movement which is the sign of the opportunity at this moment confronting the churches. They could supply, for indeed they profess to be the treasury of, those values which secularist causes do not contain.” —Mr. Kenneth Ingram, in “The Night is Far Spent.”

s‘When he replaced Baron vou Neurath, Reinhard Heydrich, the Gestapo terrorist, proclaimed a “state of emergency” in the Czech. Protectorate, and his. men began to gather in prominent Czechs by the hundred. There are now 150,000 German troops and 120,000 Gestapo men in the Protectorate, but the Czechs show no more inclination to be ‘co-ordinated’ than before. Czech unrest has spread to Slovakia, which at the time of the partition deserted the Czech Republic and accepted nominal independence under the Germans. The independence has proved to be fictitious, and Slovak soldiers, released from the Eastern front for work in the harvest, have been taking their rifles with them and disappearing into the Tatra Mountains, where they join Czech guerrilla bands. The food situation has become steadily worse. Butter has disappeared. Sugar, coffee and tea are extremely scarce, rice available only for the sick. Each night in Prague lamp-posts are labelled ‘Reserved’— meaning for traitors and their Gestapo friends, who will be hanged there when the day of reckoning comes.’’—Mr. F. T. Birchall, in the “New York Times.”

Bread. Be gentle When you Touch bread. Let it not lie Uucared for. Unwanted; So often bread Is taken for granted. There is such beauty In bread. Beauty of sun and soil, Beauty of patient toil, Wind and rain have caressed it,' Christ often blessed it. Be gentle , When you touch bread. —ln Y.W.C.A. “Notes.”