Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 6 December 1939, Page 6

Timely Topics

“The public must be convinced that the war is not being fought halfheartedly (says “The Economist”). Sir

BRITAIN’S EFFORT.

John Simon’s words on departmental economy were riglttly cheered in the House. But the

counterpart of economy in the normal peace-time administration of the country must be the absence; of any purely financial obstacles to the prosecution of the war. Finance is, after all. nothing but a shroud for economic truth. The British public has no love for taxation or for borrowing, still less for inflation. “But it is still the fundamental fact that the public will be dissatisfied with any cost of the war short of the maximum. For the maximum cost will merely be a reflection of the fact that the maximum effort is being made, and the public has clearly grasped the fact—more clearly, apparently, than the Government—that the quicker the maximum effort is made the quicker the war will ba over. “If British industry can build a gigantic air fleet, if British manpower can fill the ranks of a gigantic army, if British shipyards can keep the Navy and the Merchant Navy supreme —and they can—then money can be found to pay for them. In war, finance is a follower, not a maker, of policy, and ‘ impossible ’ is excluded from its vocabulary.”

“Time is on our side. It is one of Hitler’s greatest enemies,’” states the “Daily Mail.” “The supreme condi-

TIME ON SIDE OF RIGHT.

tion of his ' existence as the Leader of the German peo-

ple is that he cannot ever stand on his past achievements. “To stay still for him is to go back. Let him but cease for a moment to dazzle his dupes with the appearance of victories, and they will begin to ask him for bread. And all around him will rise the vengeance and the legions of the oppressed.

“Great Britain and France will not accept his ‘ peace offer.’ They will not allow him this escape. For us the way of life, the way of honour, is plain. We have only to endure to conquer.”

“There are, of course, peace terms which could be discussed tomorrow,” points cut the “News Chronicle”— “terms which would enable the world to breathe again and make a fresh start upon an upward path. But they do not include acquiescence in aggression. The people of this country understand that the cause for which we have drawn the sword is the cause of freedom; and until the reversion to force or domination by the threat of force is stayed there can be no turning back.”