Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 21 February 1940, Page 4

Timely Topics

Speaking at the Mansion House, London, the British Prime Minister, the Ri°ht. Hon. Neville Chamberlain. said: This col-FRANCO-BRITISH laboration be-CO-OPERATION. tween France and ourselves for humanitarian purposes is just another instance of that close, that even | intimate, association between us that now covers every .aspect of the war military, political, financial, and -economic. 1 I cannot help thinking that our experience of this association during the i\v?r will prove it to be so valuable 'that when the war is over neither nf |us will want to give it up. (Cheers.) > And it may even develop into 'something wider and deeper, because i there is nothing which would do i more to facilitate the task of peaceI ful reconstruction which has got tr jbe undertaken some time.. There id f nothing which would contribute more (towards the permanence of its resuit: \ than the extension of the Anglo- | French collaboration in finance ana l economics to every nation in Europe, land, indeed, perhaps to the whole j, world. 1 lii his last three speeches, which 1 ’know have been widely read in this [country, M. Daladier, the Premier oi ? France, has expressed, with his usual ? clarity and eloquence, the spirit . ol i the French people, their determma*tion to achieve the security which has [been so long denied to them,, their I readiness to accept any hardship or * sacrifice that may be necessary in , order to attain it, and their unanimity in the face of national danger, and I am confident that wc in this country will not lag behind the French in our resolution or in our cheerful acceptance of the inevitable hardships of war.

At a later stage of his Mansion House speech, Mr Chamberlain said: \ Now I come to a point to which I at- S\

GRIMMER PHASE OF WAR.

tach very great importance. It is the general

attitude of the nation towards the war. I do not believe that there is any people in the world who are more patriotic, more ready to sacrifice themselves for their country or their principles, than our own. I am certain that they arcunited in their determination to win this war and to put an end to the spirit which dominates German policy- ~ , . What I am not quite so sure of is that they understand what they are up against or that we shall have, to face a phase of this war much grimmer than anything we have seen yet. If that be so I am not blaming them. Perhaps it is because they have not been told enough about it. Perhaps it is the fault of the Government in general and myself in particular. I might plead in mitigation that I have had a good many other things to occupy me which made it difficult to resort to the platform, but at any rate I have an opportunity this afternoon and I want to take it. Briefly my theme is this: wc r.iust not think because this war has not taken the form hitherto that it did in 1914 that we can carry on our lives as if we were still at peace. Wc have got to do without a lot of things that we shall miss very much. I am to try to show you why. Although we are not yet actually fighting on land, wc are making preparations to enable us to do so with the greatest effect whenever the right moment comes. For that purpose we are devoting more and more of our manpower to the production of armaments, and that must mean that there is less and less available to produce civilian goods.