BRITAIN’S WAR EFFORT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 204, 30 July 1941, Page 7

BRITAIN’S WAR EFFORT

The combined programme of naval and merchant ship building how in liand was bigger than at any period in the last war. British fighter planes wore at least as much ahead of the enemy as they were a year ago. Britain .in the past year, without taking into account United States imports, had doubled her long-range bombing-power and would double it again in the next three months, and with American aid would redouble it in the following six months. Britain’s total output of warlike Stores in the seventh quarter of this war was nearly twice as great as in the similar quarter of the last war and equal to the 14th quarter of the last war.

During the final two years of the last war labour disputes and strikes caused the loss of twelve million days, compared with two million since the outbreak of this war. “A picture so luridly drawn of the chaotic and convulsive struggle of the three Supply Departments, without guidance or design, is one which no doubt would be pleasing to our enemies, but happily has no relation to the facts.” These words occurred early in Mr Churchill’s speech. lie recalled the speech he made on January- 22, in which he gave in detail the form of supply organisation ho proposed to adopt and to which he proposed to adhere. Ho stated that as Minister of Defence, he had prepared for the War Cabinet a general scheme based on the forward programmes of the Fighting Services, which brought together the whole home munitions production and imports programme and prescribed the largest reasonable target at which to aim. •

Pointing out that each Fighting Department in the main had its own chain of factories, Air Churchill said that, oxcept ou the fringe of these powerful organisations, there was almost no friction or overlapping between one department and another. He shortly reviewed departmental organisation and said : “We are not a totalitarian State, hut we are steadily, and I believe as fast as possible, working ourselves into a total war organisation.” Dealing with the work of Purchasing Commission in the United States, Air Churchill said it had reached a very high level and, though a year or six months ago there were a lot of trouble and discordances, his information was that they had largely died away. The United States had naturally asked for the fullest and clearest information about the goods they were supplying, and whether there was waste or misdirection. Their criticism was searching and well-informed, and it was the Government’s duty to reply to their questions. Turning to home production, Air Churchill dealt with the allegation of departmental disputes and said: “All T can say is that for the last four months no question of departmental rivalry or dispute has been brought to me or the War Cabinet.” AIINISTER NOT AVANTED.

Ho dismissed the suggestion ol nil appointment of a Minister ol Production and stated that such would be unnecessary and unworkable. Dealing with the specific allegation that aircraft orders to the Lnited States were not accompanied by maintenance, and ancillary equipment ordered at the same time, so that aircraft were to he seen idle for want of spares, Mr Churchill said that as far as the British aircraft were concerned this was quite untrue. But after the collapse of France aircraft built for b rench requirements had to be altered bclore the K.A.F. were able to use them, and, new spares had to be .ordered, they were practically all now in use.

Dealing with new aircraft, Mr Churchill said: “I am _ glad to tell the House that our spring and summer fashions in aircraft this year are further ahead of contemporary Berman production than they were last year.

“The enemy borrowed many ideas from our fighter planes, and we bor.rowed some from him, but in the ups! ot we confronted him in 1941 with h liter aircraft which m P er ’ snood ceiling, and, abo\e all. anna incut,’ left our pilots with their old, and even with an added, sense of tcchm cal superiority.” . . . Technical superiority in aircraft sometimes meant the adoption of ew ideas, even at the expense of mm ors of output. “The struggle for air mastery requires a vast number, but those vast numbers do not succeed a one unless the leading types consta t.tly achieve the highest level of enteiprise »» ■>?..«« ntwspji pel's s "; h th . l *H„» ! e ‘.ns of is» - "*• "“ d b 7lriiam"nt, *£ »«ronu in whidi ?™yan«» and iplaints became vocal, and the l»e.should be a prompt and vigilant alar hell, but ideas should not be spre. l abroad as to the eeling of the .House when its opinion had not been tesicu bv a division. CRITICS A NSW ER FT). Mr Churchill devoted tention to Wardlaw-Alilne n ** .. f tiipir total f*iiH *' iK,*. . T'h Is Statement was f bud been circulated over the world the allo „ a tion which would be admi j | to wlien the British people had A,? the limit of their poweis. Woikmg

GREAT ACCELERATION PREMIER’S STRIKING FIGURES (United Press Association.—Copyright.— Pec. 11.25 a.m.) (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 29. Speaking in the House of Commons, during a debate on production, the Prime Minister (Mr Churchill) replied in detail to some of the more serious criticisms advanced in previous debates, and gave an impressive series of comparative ■/figures showing the great increases in supply of 'war-like stocks. . ‘Since this Government took over, the progress of expansion has been enormous and continuous and is being spurred on ruthlessly,” Mr Churchill said. “During the past three months the output of the Ministry of Supply has been one-tliird greater than in the three months of the Dunkirk period, over 1000 more field-guns and one and a half times as much ammunition, being- made than in the Dunkirk period. It is Estimated that a third more people are working in industries than a year ago.”

men and women did not take their clothes off for a week at a time, and their output was the utmost limit of their strength. This produced abnormal inflation of production. Now it is true we are only working 75 per cent, of that.” Air Churchill explained that if such conditions had continued there would have been a crash costing far more in production than the minimum periods of leisure now adopted. He also explained the temporary retarding effect of labour dilution and the permanent diminution because of the dispersal of vulnerable plant to different centres. The latter he illustrated by the Bristol aircraft firm, which had been dispersed over nearly 45 sub-centres. “We may suffer and output may he retarded, but wc can no longer he destroyed.” THE REAL FACTS. Air Churchill gave “facts and figures to show how we have succeeded, by improved organisation and by tfie smoother running of our expanding machinery, in overcoming the difficulties.” in spite of troubles and diificultics, the Afinistry of Supply output in the last three months had been onethird greater than in Lie three months of the Dunkirk period. “Though our Navy, Army, and Air Foreo are larger, the Ministry of Supply has onc-tfiird more people working in its factories; each man is turning out each day on a scale as much as ill that time of almost superhuman effort. This is despite the dilution, dispersion, air raids, black-outs, and all tfie troubles I have described. “bet mo present the balance-sheet — ’ one-third more workers and one-third more output is quits, but all the adverse factors I described have somehow been cancelled out. by superior development. Wo have made in the last ' three months more than twice the field-guns made in the Dunkirk three months. Munitions wc a.re turning out are half as much again, and the combined programme of merchant and naval shipping now in hand is greater than at any period during the last war.” Since the present Government took over, the progress and expansion had been enormous and continuous. Fighter aircraft were at least as much ahead of the Nazis as a year ago, and there | had been no sacrifice of quality to j quantity. As for bombers in British produe- j tion alone, the bomb discharge on j Germany had been doubled, “and in tiic next three months wc shall doublo it again.” Time lost through labour disputes had liecu much less than in the last war. “I received jnst before coining here to-day information that at 11 o’clock this morning there was no 1 stoppage of work of any kind arising from any dispute in any part of Britain,” he said. NATION WARNED. After pay tag a tribute tq the Minister of Labour and the great worklie was accomplishing, Mr Churchill gave what he described as a “very serious warning.” “There is no doubt that there are temptations to optimism. Tt is a fact that the mighty Russian State, so foully and treacherously assaulted, has struck back with magnificent strength and courage and has inflicted prodigious and well-deserved slaughter for the first time upon the Nazi armies.

“It is a fact that the United States —the greatest single Power in the world —is coming to our aid on a gigantic scale aiul is advancing in a rising wrath of conviction to the very verge of war. “It is a fact that German air superiority has been broken and that the German air attacks on this country have for the time l>eing ceased. File Rattle of the Atlantic, although far from won, has, partly through American intervention, moved impressively in our favour. “It is a fact that the Nile \ alley is much safer than 12 or 13 months ago. “It is a fact that the'enemy has lost all pretence of theme or doctrine and has sunk even deeper in moral and intellectual degradation and bankruptcy, and almost, all his conquests have become burdens and sources of weakness.

“But with all this we must not be led for a moment to suppose that the worst is over. The formidable power of Nazi Germany, the vast mass of the destructive munitions w hich they have made, and the courage and skill of their striking forces and the ru.lljessness of their centralised war direction, the prostrate condition of so many peoples under their yoke and the resources of so many countries which have been to some extent available to them, all these restrain and forbid the sl.ghtest relaxation. “It would be madness to suppose that Russia or the United States is going to win this war for us. STAND AS CHAMPION. “The invasion season is at hand and all the Armed Forces have been warned. B.v September 1 we shall have to reckon with the gambler s-, desperation. We stand here still champion. If we fail all fail; if we fall all fall together. “It will only be a superb, intense, and prolonged effort by the whole of the British Empire that the great combination of about three-quarters of the whole human race against Nazidom will come into vehement, dominating life.

“For more than a year we have been all alone All alone we have had to guard the treasure oi Man-

kind. Although there have been profound and encouraging changes in the situation, our responsibilities remain undiminished, and we shall only discharge them by continuing to pour out in the common cause the utmost endeavours of our strength and virtue and, if need he, proffer the last drop of our heart’s blood,” concluded Air Churchill.—Official Wireless.