"SECOND FRONT" CRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 32, 8 February 1943, Page 4

"SECOND FRONT" CRY

THE DESIRABLE AND THE POSSIBLE

(Rec. 9 a.m.) NEW YORK, Feb. 6. The "New York Times," in an editorial, recalls the cries for a second front in Europe last summer, when the Russians held Stalingrad by the skin of their teeth, and continues: "Now come similar outcries from Australia and China, the first of which is menaced by Japanese invasion and the second is pictured as being near economic collapse. We do not minimise these dangers. We admit that it would be a catastrophe of the first magnitude for the Allies if they materialised, but in answering frequent criticisms that the aid given to China apd Australia is inadequate it must be pointed out that the quantity that can be sent is determined by circumstances which at present are uncontrollable. Also, the battles fought in Russia, Africa, and the Solomens are as much a battle in China and Australia as in any other country. Despite the British andi American production miracles, there is just so much to go around. All our available forces in the Pacific are already fighting in order to protect Australia, and the Allied forces in Africa are not only fighting preparatory to invasion of Europe" but also to open the Mediterranean supply route to India and China. If there is not enough left to provide more aid to the Far East, it is not the fault of distribution, but the result of the original sin of all the democracies—unpreparedness."