COMMENT AND REFLECTIONS

Evening Star, Issue 24138, 7 March 1942, Page 7

COMMENT AND REFLECTIONS

Disappointment clings like a shadow to our Pacific enterprises, with everrecurring and ever more discomfiting defeats our invariable lot; and in these dark and doubtful days we may bo almost persuaded that our cause on this front is totally ruined. The promised naval reinforcements in the hope of whose early advent valiant resistance has been offered vainly in Malaya, and is still being sustained by MacArthur’s American paladins in Manila, and by the stubborn Dutch in Java, are leaden-footed, and likely to be too late to save these strongholds. Promptitude has been the main element of Japan’s success, and that is something which, even if we understand its urgency. we cannot at present command. We are, indeed, very much in the situation of the tennis player whose opponent’s service is so devastating as to permit of only such weak returns as can be killed at the not or countered by deadly passing shots which keep him on the run to retrieve* drives volleyed at him at all angles from the central vantage stance won against him. Meanwhile, at any rate, it is the enemy’s hour. The timid counsels of carher days, when wo had the chance to man these stations adequately but hesitated lest we bring to a head the malevolent intention we knew Japan to entertain, have ravelled any plans that might promise early deliverance from our enemv

It has been the fashion, as earlier it was when Germany struck at Russia, to hail the insolent and treacherous attack upon the United States at Pearl Harbour as “ Hitler’s greatest blunder.” since it ended all American disputes overnight and brought into the war against the Axis a nation of 140 millions, and the greatest industrial power in the world, A contributor to the London periodical. 'The Economist,’ in an article written only a few days after the Japanese coup, demonstrates rather effectively that, so far from being a blunder, it at any rate served for the moment the important purpose (paradoxically) of drawing America out of the war instead of into it, since it reduced the proportion of her resources available to the Allies for the struggle in Europe and Africa, compelling a large allotment of these to tho defence of the Americas, and so creating a vast new drain upon our own resources which cannot be fuly mobilised to meet the new demands before 1943. It is Hitler’s hope that the inevitable subtraction of American aid and the new shipping difficulties imposed by Japan’s successes in the Pacific will give him time to accomplish his European designs before the Western Colossus can parade at full strength. That is a brief, and, of course, imperfect summary of the writer’s thesis. In short, Hitler is not blundering, but gambling on immediate results against future hazards. Tho unexpected ease with which his aggressive Eastern partner has secured his objectives has calamitously retarded by a twelvemonth the attainment of the Allies’ .full war potential. At once wo need more ships and more weapons than will be available for many months, and during that period we must expect to meet reverses even more painful than those we have already experienced. In tho anxious months ahead we dare not permit the besetting sin of democracy, the disease of too much ease, to palsy our war Naturally we would like to nun with the very least sacrifice, but that is no longer compatible with the very perilous situation in which the Empire’s sloth has already placed ns. Our bout with the Axis is a' mortal one which we must win, or perish. Languid despondency or palsied acquiescence in what fate may bring is no armour for this sudden occasion; nor the seizure of any pretext of grievance to relax effort; nor tho despicable alignment of personal profit or case with others’ sufferings and efforts. A protracted war such as this brings into the open some baser elements that betray how little the enlightenment of civilisation has exorcised man’s iniquity. The existence of “ black markets ” in Britain and of a certain well-endowed element that still seeks to buy luxurious living at the expense of others’ deprivation has a rather daunting significance at an hour when Democracy is submitting to the acid test of its quality. If we are to come through this ordeal safely to a clearer life, no paralysis of doubt or of internal weakness that might amount in effect to treachery can be allowed to beset us to cripple qur war effort. The enemy’s treachery and aggression have not encountered the immediate and disastrous retribution we had expected, but, on the contrary, appear to flourish as we apparently decline. And they may retain this complexion of victory for months yet. But if we have the fortitude, as undoubtedly we have the power to keep our feet under the blows to be rained upon us east and west, America and ourselves will amass presently man power and weapon power on a scale sufficient to sweep the dictators and their puppets away.

No good purpose could bo served by attempt to reconstruct tho now almost complete Japanese penetration of Indonesia. Only too faithfully has it reflected the process sketched in earlier articles. Java is undoubtedly now doomed, though the Dutch may be able to emulate the feat of the Americans at Manila, by withdrawing their armies (as MacArthur did to tho Batan Peninsula), to form a new Torres Vcdras capable of becoming tho pivot for punishing blows to tho invader. But Rangoon’s fate is apparently also imminent, with consequent irruption of the Japanese upon the Indian Ocean, and the enemy is so confident as to forecast occupation of Calcutta by mid-April. Personally, we believe that it is in this Indian Ocean tho Japanese gage will be accepted, and the issue fought out on more equal terms than have obtained. It is inconceivable that our provision has been so lacking as to neglecct defence of tho very centre of the Empire’s Eastern strength and commerce. We believe that the Axis move west and east will be challenged determinedly in the Indian Ocean and that within the waters of the Bay of Bengal the bloodiest of sea battles is due for decision within tho next few weeks.

Meanwhile the situation in Russia has assumed, fortunately for us, an entirely new perspective. There can no longer be doubt that the enemy’s embarrassment is genuine—that his spring offensive has been hampered to the extent that he has not been allowed to nurse his resources over the winter, and that a great obstacle is already imposed to his summer campaign by the trap at Staraya Russa, and the closing of the Red army upon the Dnieper bend, which is the nodal point for Gorman advance upon the Caucasus. These are great achievements, but we must not forget that the winter has given the advantage to our ally in the loss of effectiveness of German mechanised detachments, and that the day is approaching when these and the largely immobilised air forces will regain their effectiveness, and the exploitation of winter conditions will no

longer favour our ally. undoubtedly a great German offensive impends here, and the issue depends largely on the Allies’ ability to jirovide Russia with the mechanised equipment essential to meet the thrust.