"IT IS HERE!"

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1940, Page 9

"IT IS HERE!"

WAR AT DOORSTEPS

SHIP LOSSES SERIOUS

AUSTRALIANS WARNED

Perhaps Hitler rendered us, unwittingly, a service when he blew up a few ships on our doorsteps. He told complacent Australians that the war was in Bass Strait. And if if is in Bass Strait it is in Pitt Street and Bourke Street, and Bourke and back of Bourke. In that manner Australia's Minister for the Army, Mr. P. Spender, sought to drive home his powerful blow for vigilance in a recent address to people of the Commonwealth. "The war," he said, "is not a matter of armies in conflict half a. world away —it is here, in Australia. And every Australian is in it. There can and must be no lag in our war effort. It must be so real, so obvious, so great as to leave no room for cavil or complaint. We must, indeed, not be satisfied with any effort, however great it may be." GRAVITY OF SITUATION. A warning was given by him that the loss of British shipping was one of the most serious aspects of the war. He said that, while the interruption to British war industries and to the flow of essential supplies had been surprisingly small, the people should not blind themselves to the situation; nor could the situation be estimated too gravely. "If," he said, "Hitler can succeed in delivering these smashing blows to British ■ shipping, if the Germans are allowed to continue unchecked this terrible punishment of our sea-borne trade, the effect upon our national resistance will be cruelly weakening, and could, indeed, end in our undoing." One thing had to be broken down, and that was the lag in the consciousness of the man whose life swam on as easily as ever, and there was, too, very often, the man who blinded himself to facts and to his own responsibility. "TO THE LAST BREATH." "Individual sacrifice means something more than taking your increased income tax on the chin," he said. "It means individual service—something more than doing your bit on a button day. Moreover, and above all, fight defeatism with your last breath. "'What's the use?' never won anything. Destructive criticism never won anything. If somebody is not doing something properly, somebody highly placed perhaps, show him how. However highly placed he is, he can learn, j "Bitter reflection upon past neglect not only never won anything, it woos defeat. This is the defeatism to which | Hitler has risen superior. Germany, in j the dirt yesterday, is wasting no time and energy in bitter reflection. We can learn Irom an enemy.

"Many recent signs point to a German and Italian combined plan to drive British naval and military forces from the Mediterranean area, and to carry the war against the British positions in the Near and Middle East, an area of vital concern to 'Australia.

"The Egyptian Government has taken a strong and satisfactory stand in showing its intention to carry out the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, both in letter and in spirit. The Government of Turkey has expressed the greatest indignation at Italy's unprovoked attack on Greece. Altogether, the Mediterranean situation, fraught as it is with problems and perplexities, offers the prospect that the resolute provision of the means of offence and defence—particularly of offence—against the enemy may well bring early reward. MEETING SECURITY THREAT. "At no time since the war began has the Commonwealth Government been able to regard lightly the responsibility for Australian defence nearer home. We have been compelled to watch events closely in the Pacific Ocean region, and in East Asia, lest, by some mischance, Australia's own security should be threatened by an extension of the war in Europe and the Mediterranean. This remains the position today. "It cannot be disregarded that the Three-Power Pact of Germany, Italy, and Japan has brought a new alignment in the Far East, whose effects on British, and, I may say, American,: interests cannot yet be fully foreseen.

"Our duty is, therefore, continued vigilance, which, none the less, we can combine with the hope that the many factors working for stability and mutual respect among the countries of the Pacific region will, as time goes on, gain in strength."