HITLER’S DOOM SEALED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 217, 12 August 1940, Page 7

HITLER’S DOOM SEALED

INDOMITABLE BRITISH SPIRIT STIRRING CHALLENGE ISSUED (United Press Association —By Electric, Telegraph — Copyright.) (British Official Wireless'.) Received August 12, 11.10 a.m. RUGBY, Aug' 11. “The'close of the first- year of war finds this country left to face the coming storm alone,” stated the Secretary for India (Mr L. S. Amery) speakin'g at Blackpool this afternoon. “We are' prepared and ready for whatever form the attack may take, for. whatever new devilry the enemy may have prepared.

“The trial of our endurance •will be stern. One thing I do know. If Hitler thinks our spirit can be broken by mass attack from the air upon our industries and shipping lie will find himself grievously mistaken. He has got to achieve far more than that to win the war. He has got to come over and take us and break us as he has taken and broken others. Let him try!

"TIDE HAS TURNED.” "If he does try he will fail disastrously and his failure will bring the end nearer than anything else could possibly do, but if the stakes are too high for him and he gives up the attempt that, too, will be failure,” added Mr Amery. "All the world will know the tide has turned, and that sooner or later bis fate will be sealed. "He may hope as a second best plan, if bo cannot destroy the British Empire here at heart, to lop off some of its limbs. He may send his bombers and air-borne troops to stiffen his half-hearted Italian allies in an attack on Egypt and our whole position in the Middle East and Africa. If he does his men will . meet not only a warm climate but a warm reception. GROWING AIR POWER.

"In any case, nothing he can do in that quarter can protect the health of Germany from our growing strength in the air. Thanks to the superior skill and daring of our airmen, thanks also to the superiority of the men who designed and made their machines, we have already with greatly inferior numbers inflicted far more damage upon the enemy than we have suffered.

"More and more, week by week, as our resources in the air multiply we shall seek the enemy oat in his own home and destroy one by one the factories upon which his war power is based, the transport bv means of which his armies and the life of his people are sustained.

"Meanwhile, no continental conquests of his can shake off the stranglehold of our blockade. He may extend liis empire for the time being, but more and more her conquered and oppressed peoples will look to in* to deliver them alike from political enslavement and from dire material need.

"Then, masters of the sea and air, with our armies equipped and trained for the task no longer of defence but deliverance, we shall- —by what approach and with what allies no one can yet say—seek out the dragon in Ins lair and put an end to this 'evil*horror which to-day obsesses the world.” FIENDISH NAZI CREED. j Mr Amery proceeded to justify this description of Hitlerism. “Behind this terrible German engine of destruction, behind these armoured divisions, millions of infantry, these air squadrons and lurking suomarincs, efficiency we cannot but admit,” he said, “there lies a purpose as cruel and brutal as it is senseless —mere lust for power as a means for yet iurther aggression. The Nazi creed which inspires that purpose exalts cruelty and brutality, and despises mercy, tolerance, fair dealing and justice. It denies all rights to the individual as against a handful of gangsters who claim to represent the omnipotent State. "It lias often been said a victory for Nazidom would mean the destruction of all the spiritual and moral heritage of Western Civilisation so far as Europe is concerned. That is true, but ours is not the only civilisation. It is my privilege to serve in the British Government in the interest oI the Empire of India. Some 350 million people in India can claim a civilisa- j tion more ancient than ours. They belong to religions which differ from ours in many respects, but they are at one with ours in their recognition of the spiritual valhe of_ the individual soul. Their "reverence is for a moral law which knows no boundaries of race and applies alike to rulers and ruled. 1 here is no common meeting-ground between Nazism on the one side, and on the other, Islam, with its profoundly democratic sense of equality, with its emphasis on mercy and pity for the poor and weak, or Hinduism, with its concentration on the spiritual side ot me and its rejection of violence. THREAT TO ALL. “It is not only our civilisation and religion here ‘in Europe, but all civilisation—all true religion—that is

threatened by the barbaric forces of the spiritual even more than materia] destruction which are embodied in Nazi Germany to-day.” Mr Amery went on to speak of England’s heritage of freedom, and its imperial heirs, and referred hopefully to the Government’s latest efforts to find a solution to the difficulties of India. "This English freedom of ours—we never thought it as a monopoly to be secured to ourselves at the expense of others. We sought to spread it wherever our adventurous people wandered afield and wherever British influence was extended.” EXPERIMENT IN INDIA. "That has been ,i wonderful experiment and we see the fruits of its success in the Dominion armies which come iiere and to every threatened point in the Empire to defend our common freedom and our common cause. We are engaged upon an even more daring experiment of applying the same principles to India with her many races and creeds, with her immensely complex political structure, with her difficult and dangerous problems of defence. I have no doubt we shall succeed, because in the long run goodwill, sincerity, and statesmanship on. both sides must prevail over short-sighted fearo and suspicions. “We have repeatedly declared our resolve that India shall attain to the same freedom, to the same full and equal partnership in the Commonwealth, as tiie other Dominions—for that matter as this country itself. There is no greater freedom, no higher status, than that in the world to-day. "We have in tliese last few days given Europe ail earnest of our intentions by making it clear that, subject to due provision for those special obligations and responsibilities which our Jong connection with India has imposed upon us, we wish to see India, like the other Dominions, framing her own Constitution in her own way in harmony with her own political, social and economic conceptions. And if that can only be completed after the war is over there is nothing to prevent much indispensable preliminary worn of study and discussion and negotiations being taken in hand by friendly agreement even during the war. Nor could anything help that atmosphere of friendly agreement' more than acceptance by the Indian leaders of all political parties of their share in the work of government, making it in fact in India as we have made it here—a truly National Government enjoying the goodwill and confidence of all the main elements in India’s national life,” declared Mr Amery. BRITAIN’S IDEALS. "India is united to-<lay in her detestation of Nazi tyranny and aggression,” Mr Amery continued. “She knows the menace a Nazi victory would mean, not only to the fabric of the British Empire as a whole, but to India’s own existence, to her political aspirations, and to her moral and spiritual ideals. I can only hope and trust that, realising this, her political leaders will accept without prejudice, and in the spirit in which it has been offered them, the opportunity of ser\- | ing the immediate interest of India in the world struggle and thus pave the way most smoothly and speedily towards realisation of the goal to which we and they equally aspire.”

Mr Amcry concluded by emphasising tho British people’s desire ior a spread of freedom not confined to the Commonwealth, and he declared: “We w’ish to see the peoples of Europe united together after this war in free co-operation for their mutual security and welfare. It is because that is our faith and the mainspring of our actions all who love freedom in Europe will continue to look to us to break asunder the bars of the prison in which they are now confined, and to bring them the succour and relief of which they stand so sorely in need.” (