Evening Post TUESDAY, MAY 27, 1941. A DARK HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 123, 27 May 1941, Page 6

Evening Post TUESDAY, MAY 27, 1941. A DARK HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN

The dark period through which the British Commonwealth of Nations must pass hefore American aid becomes fully effective in 1942 is a reality which the people of New Zealand and Australia, even now, have not fully realised. It is therefore a courageous step on the part of the Australian Prime Minister to give last night urgent warning to his fellow-Australians in a speech in which Empire danger is even more fully underlined than was the case when, en route to Sydney, he warned New Zealanders. When people are sleeping or are still half asleep it is necessary to knock very loudly on the door; and Mr. Menzies naturally would feel that he is more free to thump the door in his own Australia than in New Zealand. The partypolitical background in this country is not specially his business, but the party-political difficulties in Australia are the actual material on which he must strenuously work; and his appeal that _the Commonwealth Parliament should become an instrument of war rather than an instrument of party dissension is made with all the vibrating force of a leader keyed up to a great worldmoment. Now, if ever in history, I time is the essence of the contract. Time-consuming dissensions must be put away, at any rate during the dark hour that precedes the dawn. He does not ask Labour to part with either its identity or its ideals, but he says that politicians must part for the present with party- warfare, and the public must part with those commodities which are the product of non-essential industries noAV doomed to cessation by the pre-eminent needs of war. Girding their loins for what Mr. ! Menzies calls "our year of Fate, 1941," the peoples of the quiet southern winter must realise that the fateful northern summer is still running its kingdom-wrecking course. The southern winter of comparative content must not blind southern eyes to the northern summer of blood and fire, where ebbs and flows the deadly war in which the fate of Australasia as well as America is involved. If the northern hemisphere war does not run on the right lines during the balance of the northern summer, next summer in southern climes will wake the sleepers in a way they will not like; so it is far better to hear the war summons and to wake now. Fresh from the hub of our war-wheel, Mr. Menzies tells us plainly that during this year, our year of Fate, American aid cannot be Secisive in the Mediterranean; there, in the Battle of Crete, we are out-machined in the air, and are grimly hanging on in dependence on our own resources. All round the Mediterranean, Mr. Menzies also states, grave events will happen in those dark six months to come —in Turkey, Palestine, Irak, Egypt, Spain, Gibraltar; also in the Atlantic. In all these fields and spheres we shall give back blow for blow, but there is a price to pay, the naval price lately being a battle-cruiser and possibly other losses in the operations connected with Crete. The fight for Crete between enemy air forces and our warships continues fiercely, while the Axis diplomatic stranglehold on Turkey relaxes not a jot. Well may Mr. Menzies remind Australians and New Zealanders that this unpredictable and increasing struggle for the Middle East involves their ow m life-line and their very existence. Concerning the Russian Sphinx he was silent; and there are other blank pages on which unforeseeable history Avill be written. In fact, all gates in the Middle East are open. Only one is barred—the gate of compromise. The Commonwealth of Nations will fight on.