BRIGHTER PICTURE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 265, 8 October 1942, Page 2

BRIGHTER PICTURE

3.45 P.M. EDITION

UNITED NATIONS* TASK. (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Rcc. 2 p.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 7. Drawing up a balance-sheet of the war, the New York Times correspondent. Mr Hanson Baldwin, says: The world enters the fourth winter of the conflict with a war of lightning conquest replaced by a war of attrition, a factor which is probably of very great advantage to the United Nations, whose strength is mounting whereas the enemy's has probably reached and even passed the peak.

"Months, perhaps years, of peril remain, but we have weathered, a large part of the most acute danger period of this year of crisis and the worst has not happened. Russia fights strongly; the United Nations have established qualitative and are gaining quantitative air superiority; the submarine menace is being slowly met; Japan's march of conquest has been stemmed and neither India nor Siberia has been invaded and China is still unconquered. "Admittedly the strategic situation is subject to "sudden change, but the picture looks brighter than most observers hoped three months ago. Tho Allied grip or. tho Solomons is again being challenged and the campaign in these exotic wild islands has rapidly become one of attrition, with problems of supply, construction, and sea control looming large. The rapid unexplained Japanese retreat in New Guinea lias relieved Port Moresby, but the situation in the South Pacific is still in a delicate balance. "The balance-sheet shows many debits as well as credits. The enemy has won great victories, maybe pyrrhic ones, for neither Germany nor Japan is able to force a decision." A Chicago message states: ."September marked the turning point of the war and an Allied victory will be achieved in about a year," said Dr Melchior Palyi, who was at one time economic adviser to the Reichbank in Berlin, in addressing the War Emergency Conference. He added that once* Germany had been vanquished Japan would be regarded as a major colonial expedition, similar to the Boer War, but aerial assault would result in a quicker victory.