MR. MENZIES’ ARRIVAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 May 1941, Page 4

MR. MENZIES’ ARRIVAL

TRIBUTE TO BRITISH PEOPLE FORTITUDE UNDERSTATED [per press association.] AUCKLAND, May 22. “One of the things that impressed me most was the spirit of the peop of Britain, including and particularly women,” said the Prime Minister of Australia (Mr. Menzies) in an interview. “A great deal has been written and spoken about the way they stand bombing, and it is not exaggerated, but understated. No words can describe the amazing fortitude of these people. I travelled over a great deal of England, concentrating on the areas that had been most attacked, and I visited numbers of factories employing thousands of hands. Not once did I come across a person who wanted an early peace or compromise.” In reply to a question, Mr. Menzies said he found no sign of anything like “air raid neurosis.” The people seemed to get accustomed to danger. “Air raids are not pleasant, he remarked. “I was in a big one at Plymouth, and there was another a fortnight before I left London—-a beauty. They are frightful while they are on; but the people soon recover when they are over. In spite of constant bombing, war production is greater than when the air attacks started. It will take many years to wipe London out at the present rate of progress, and that rate cannot be maintained. Daylight bombing has ceased since the Royal Air Force knocked it out last year, and night bombing is becoming less profitable each month. It must reach a point at which the ratio of loss will make it not worth while. Tremendous advances have been made in night fighting.”

Asked if he had seen any of the new aeroplanes now in use by the Royal Air Force, Mr. Menzies said he had inspected them all. The new heavy bombers were superior in range and bomb-carrying capacity to anything Germany could put into the air. The new fighters had incredible speed, and the tests he had seen were beyond description. “In the Battle of the Atlantic Britain is concentrating terrific energy on a variety of means which I am unable to describe,” he remarked. “On this subject I am an optimist, though I do not under-estimate the difficulty. The American patrols are of first-rate importance.” Mr. Menzies mentioned that he had attended every meeting of the WaiCabinet while he was in London. In Ottawa he had had a long conference with the Canadian Cabinet, and had been called upon for five speeches in one day. Asked how Mr. Churchill was bearing the burden of his responsibilities, he said he found him even more vigorous and apparently less tired than at their last meeting three years ago. President Roosevelt, whom he had seen six years ago, was, in bed with a bronchial affection, but was nevertheless a miracle of vigour, and their conversation was one of the most stimulating he had had in his whole tour.

KING SLAPPED ON BACK. AUCKLAND, May 22. A warm reception was given the Prime Minister of Australia (Mr Menzies) at a State dinrfer to-night. The Acting-Prime Minister (Mr Nash), and the Minister for Supply (Mr Sullivan) represented the Government. “In the long and glorious history of our race, great fame, has been won by armies and navies, by the fighting forces, by generals and admirals, whose names are recorded and whose portraits hang on the walla, but this is the first war in which honour and glory belong not to a few men, but are the honour and glory of an entire people,” said Mr Menzies, who delivered a stirring speech. Mr Menzies spoke simply of the issues confronting the British Commonwealth, and showed clearly the magnitude of the menace by which the British people are confronted. He said he had no thought of defeat, but he was convinced that only the best that every man, woman and child could give would suffice to win. To give his audience a picture of the freedom with which the King moves among his people, specially those who have suffered most, Mr Menzies told the story of His Majesty’s visit to a bombed area. A cheerful bystander slapped him on the shoulder and said: “Thank God for a good King.” His Majesty turned, put his hand' on the man’s shoulder, and said: “And thank God for good people.” “We are going to win this war because we .have good people,” Mr Menzies said. “I could not have believed how valiant is the spirit of the common man.” A strange and almost divine thing was that in the back-streets and slums of the English cities there were men women who had almost, nothing to lose, and who had been dealt with by life with the cruellest injustice. Yet these were the people in whom the flame of resolution burned fiercely that those who had seen it could never forget. Mr Menzies scorned any suggestion that these people were putting their backs into winning the war because of the improved conditions they might expect afterward. . PRICE OF VICTORY. “The people who are doing these things in Great Britain, and by their spirit are winning this war, have already made their own place in the post-war world secure. I have encountered no thinking human being in Great Britain who does not realise that if the price of victory is poverty, and I think it is—and what is wrong with poverty, provided it is the poverty -Of freedom?—then the business of statesmanship after the war is to see that poverty is honourably shared.” The common people of Britain, and he used the word “common” in the

same meaning as in the House of Commons, these little people at whom before the German finger was pointed in scorn, were the greatest of all generations who had found a place in history. He said he could not help feeling that there were no people m the world who could so magnificently have withstood the ordeal as the people of Great Britain. We have read of them, but we do not even begin to know what they have' gone through,” he. continued. We see people in their thousands working cheerfully, magnificently and saying with enthusiasm: ‘Yes, we have had a bad time, but production was 20 per cent, higher last week.’ In our own countries we could do twice what we are doing, and still stop short of the sacrifice being made by the people of Britain.” Mr Menzies said that in those cities where death had fallen so suddenly that it had been necessary to have great community funerals of hundreds of unidentifiable fellowcitizens, he would defy anyone to find a single person who would call a halt, or sue for terms. “Defeat,” he said. “The word has not been heard in any of those towns. The spirit of the people is such that they say, ‘lf everyone else in my house has . gone into a common grave, I am still here. I must work and sweat, because this is not going to happen again to my people if I can help it.’ . “We have one great inferiority to our foe,” he said. “We are inferior in machines. We are not inferior in men. We are not inferior in spirit. In the long run spirit wins, but it wins more quickly when the man who has it has the instruments to fight the foe.”

“MUDDLING” DENOUNCED.

AUCKLAND, May 23.

Mr. Menzies, in his speech, said that Germany was preparing for years for the war, amassing weapons in great quality and enormous quantity. The British went along comforting themselves that something would happen, and fixing attention on raising the general standards, but suddenly found themselves confronted by an enemy so immensely superior in machine power, that he had inflicted defeat after defeat, and had not finished yet. Such an enemy would not be defeated by saying we had a just cause, nor comforting ourselves we will muddle through. “I denounce this nonsense about muddling through,” Mr. Menzies said. “You will never muddle through to victory against Germany in this war. Not a scrap of individual comfort or the standard of living matters a hoot until we’ve won this war. If we have to work ourselves to the bone to produce tanks, guns and aircraft, let us give up argument, and work ourselves to the bone.” The enemy already sat astride Europe and to-morrow might sit astride half the world. He had gathered up a great army of skilled workers, many of them in France. “I met General de Gaulle several times in England, and formed a most profound respect foi his character and outlook, but France to-day presents perhaps the supreme tragedy of history, governed largely by men who preferred power, and as they saw it, the security of German authority to individuality for which France stood. I believe in France because I believe in the spirit of the French people.” Yet Frenchmen in unoccupied France to-day, must work to live, and produce their work available to Germany. Britain and the Dominions, aided by the untapped resources of America, could outmachine the foe, but how long would it take? Time was the essence of the contract. “We want a kind of single purpose league throughout the world. We must make up our minds there is one job in hand and one only. If every man, woman and child devotes every ounce to winning the war, it will be enough, but nothing less will do.”

U.S.A. APPRECIATION. Mr. Menzies continued “I have a tremendous impression of the power, skill, ingenuity and diabolical cleverness of this evil thing we are fighting, for a world that comes after us. lam merely putting into imperfect words the radiant spirit that shines in the darkest back street of Birmingham or Bristol. These people of Britain are the most magnificent people man has ever beheld.” Mr. Menzies said that he found in the United States the development of public opinion in our favour, and the growing consciousness that it is their struggle, because it will determine the type of world they will have, was not due to great speeches oi’ propaganda, but the fact that the common man of America had looked across the Atlantic and seen the common man of Britain, and marvelled at him. “If there is one thing that has stirred America, it is the spectacle of those people with so little to lose, and so much valour to defend it.”

In welcoming Mr. Menzies to New Zealand, Mr. Nash paid a tribute to Australia’s phenomenal development of aeroplanes, guns and ships, and said that Australia might become the minor arsenal of the southern Pacific, from which we could draw things to defend both Australia and New Zealand. He also spoke of the complete co-ordination for mutual defence between the sister countries, and paid a tribute to the magnificent co-opera-tion between Anzacs overseas.

Mr. Nash also welcomed GovernorGeneral Brunot, the Free French envoy. TO-DAY’S ENGAGEMENTS. AUCKLAND, May 23. Mr. Menzies was in conference with Mr. Nash and Mr. Sullivan throughout the forenoon, and afterwards lunched with them. At 2.30, he deposited a wreath at the Cenotaph, and thence went to Fort Bastion to lay a wreath on the tomb of the late Prime Minister (Mr. Savage). Later, he attended a civic reception at the Town Hall.