BRITAIN'S ARMOURY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 10, 11 July 1940, Page 11

BRITAIN'S ARMOURY

NO MORE ASKED

HUGE ORDERS PLACED

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, July 9

The Minister of Supply (Mr. Herbert Morrison), broadcasting to the United States, said that, last week Britain instructed its purchasing commission in America to place orders for the largest quantity of military material other than aircraft yet ordered at a single time. It was, he said, the first instalment of a very much larger programme.

Reviewing the present position of industrial production in the United Kingdom and her enemies, Mr. Morrison said that, with the transfer to Germany of French and Belgian resources and including those of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, the German steel capacity had reached 42,000,000 tons a year, compared with 19,000,000 tons from Britain and her Empire. "But,, remember the possibility that there be added to Britain's 19,000,000 tons 52,000,000 tons of American steel capacity, making a grand total which the whole Nazi empire cannot approach," Mr. Morrison said. ' THE ISSUE CLEAR. The issue before Britain was clear. On the one hand a ruthless attack on her country; on the other hand defeat, tyranny, slavery, and the crushing of freedom and decency that would leave life not worth living. There was no choice. "The melancholy events at Oran have shown that there is no task, whatever it may be, heavy or bitter enough to overtake the resolution of this people," he added. "We will face what comes and win through. Our confidence in our ability, not merely to hold off the Nazi attack but ultimately to meet and master it, is -partly also the measure of confidence in America's readiness to add her great resources to our own for the destruction of the Nazism which menaces her no less surely, though a little less nearly, than it menaces us.

"We rejoice to see that you in America are not making the mistake that has already brought so many neutrals to ruin. You do not think that because an attack has not yet been launched upon you, you can afford to wait passively till it comes.

"Against the tremendous "material strength of the European continent organised for aggression there is only one sure industrial counterpoise in all the world, and that is to be found in the capacity of Britain and the United States.

"We are sending: and will send you orders which will set for you your objective. We look to you as our armoury, and we ask no more than this."