AID TO RUSSIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 74, 24 September 1941, Page 6

AID TO RUSSIA

INCREASING NEED

EMPIRE'S DUTY

LONG FIGHT AHEAD

(0.C.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. The need for the British Empire and her allies to give all possible aid to Russia was stressed fry Sir Harry Batterbee, High Commissioner for the United Kingdom, in an address at the Christchurch Rotary Club yesterday. "Let us face up to the fact that Russian losses are Allied losses and must be made good from the common pool," said Sir Harry. "Our first duty is to support the Russians in their gallant struggle. The policy of Britain and, indeed, of the whole British Commonwealth, towards Russia was declared in the memorable speech made by Mr. Winston Churchill on the Sunday on which Russia was attacked. In that speech he declared: 'Any man or State who fights against Nazism will have our aid; any man who marches with Hitler is our foe.'" After reviewing the developments in the first two years of war, Sir Harry said that the main British achievement in these two years was to have * kept going. "We are still alive," he said. "However, wars are not won by keeping alive: the enemy has to be beaten. There is no ground for complacency. We should be foolish not to recognise the enormous resources at the disposal of the Axis. Admittedly, his losses have been considerable in Russia, but his forces are so colossal that he can afford them, provided he attains his objectives in the East. He is reported to have been prepared to spend three million men on those objectives, the freeing of his entire forces for operations in the West and the capture of the rich agricultural, mineral, and oil resources of Russia; and you will have noted an American view reported yesterday that Hitler has ten million men. We should not place too great hopes on the results from his .-losses in Russia. While the magnificent fight that the Russians are putting up has, we believe, cheated his expectations, nevertheless, owing to Russian losses of equipment and industrial capacity, the Russian armies will increasingly rely on a supply of munitions from Britain and America, munitions on which we had been depending ourselves. "We are all filled with intense admiration at the complete self-sacri-fice with which the Russians are throwing all their most cherished) achievements of twenty years of .j effort regardless of cost into the struggle and we are determined to help them to the utmost. Indeed, I we have already succeeded in sending them material aid." GERMAN MORALE. It would be foolish to expect any early collapse of German morale. Until Hitler had actually been defeated in the field his hordes would be behind him. And so far from being defeated hitherto Hitler had a record to show his peoples of sweeping successes. There was little in the reports coming through neutral channels to support any expectation that Nazism would crumble from within without a defeat. But while admitting this, it should also be recognised that the Germans were bound to crack in the end. Once their leadership had been proved wrong by defeat in the field, Nazism had no moral forces to sustain it. "On the other hand, the true source for our own confidence, even at the time of greatest danger after Dunkirk, is the knowledge that Britain and the British Commonwealth will never .stop until we win," said Sir Harry Batterbee. "There recently appeared reports in the Press of expectations voiced in certain unofficial quarters in the United Kingdom that the war would be over early next year. There are always ir- I responsible wishful thinkers ready to clutch at every straw and to pin wild hopes on changes in the vicissitudes of war; and by all means let us not be pessimists. But prophecies j so far divorced from the grim actualities of the struggle not only betray a cowardly refusal to face unpleasant facts but are positively harmful to the common war effort in providing a temptation to relax. "The British Commonwealth cannot afford to relax for a moment. Exactly the opposite. The pressing need is for an increase in our efforts. "Little more than a year ago we stood like David facing Goliath with nothing but a sling with which to oppose his armoury of weapons. The odds are no longer so uneven, but let us keep resolutely before our eyes a picture of the immensity of the task before us. MAN-POWER AND PRODUCTION. "Picture the millions of troops at the enemy's disposal, the colossal industrial resources louring out tanks, guns, and aeroplanes. These have /to be beaten, the production has to be outdistanced. For these ends a force has to be built up and trained and factories must in the face of the greatest man-power difficulties pour out a vast stream of equipment. We have reached the stage in Britain when every manhour counts, and women are being called upon to a.greater and greater extent to do men's work. The manpower position is in fact acute, and even with the drastic measures already taken to divert lp.bour and industrial capacity to munitions, the output must be further increased. "The United States is coming to our aid, but munitions industries do not grow up like mushrooms in the night, and we cannot expect decisive amounts of supplies at once. There is nothing in the sober balancing of man for man, tank for tank, and gun for gun to justify any easy hopes. The British motto must still be 'Blood and tears and sweat.' POST-WAR PLANNING. "The struggle indeed may be, in the words of Mr. Churchill's recent broadcast, 'Hard, terrible, and long drawnout' and the first and foremost task is to win. We are still fighting for our lives. But while every ounce* of resources and energy is put, into the fight, we are planning for the postwar world. The general principles embodied in the Eight-Point Declaration are familiar enough in the British Commonwealth: they are the principles of our political and social life, whose differences lie in the methods of their application. It is by such principles that the members of the British Commonwealth are able to work in harmony together. Britain has now put into cold storage her plans for raising the standard of living, has dislocated her industry, disrupted her trade and turned upside down the carefully-adjusted balance of her whole economy. But her plans are there and the people of England are detei-mined to devote to the building up of a new social order after the war the same energy and resources that they are devoting to winning the war.".

Good whitebait catches in the Hokitika and South Westland rivers over the weekend are reported. Canning factories will open this month, states the Christchurch "Press." The whitebait is of excellent quality.