BATTLE OF EGYPT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20822, 29 June 1942, Page 4

BATTLE OF EGYPT

FAITH IN EIGHTH ARMY MR. BEVIN OUTSPOKEN UNITY-BREAKING BIDS (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (2 p.m.) LONDON, June 28. At a public meeting in Liverpool, the Minister of Labour, Mr. Ernest Bevin. said that we had had a reverse but none yet quite knew the facts. "The battle is not over yet," he said. “We are not defeated. 1 am quite confident that if we wait for the end oi the story the British army and air force will get its second wind and restore the position. It is not tiie way to win a battle by asking for reports and details and holding inquiries while the battle is on. The striking thing is the courage of the Eighth Army notwithstanding what is lost. Its courage is as great to-day as when the battle began. I have great faith in the Eighth Army.” Mr. Bevin, after paying a tribute to the Government as a working team, under Mr. Winston' Churchill, continued: "This wicked filthy business of trying to break up national unity by playing off Mr. Churchill against his colleagues on the pari of certain newspaper millionaires is a most diabolical thing. He came in in 1940 when the country was under the weather. It is still under the weather, but I am still prepared, as a trade unionist, to go under the banner of Mr. Churchill as a colleague to the end.” Lord Winster, in a speech at Ipswich, declared that Britain does not wish to lose Mr. Churchill as Prime Minister but it was idle to deny that it had lost confidence in his direction of the war and would like to see him abandon or abolish the office of Minister of Defence. The Government was too large and gave the impression of being lethargic and. lacking in imagination. “It seems to contain few or no members with a sense of urgency or a value of time,” he said. “We always move behind the Germans. We want a Government which presents us with some victories instead of a string of excuses for a series of defeats. “Parliament is beating the wind in debating the question of confidence in the Government, because public confidence went, after Singapore was lost.”