SPEED IS KEY TO VICTORY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 10 August 1942, Page 2

SPEED IS KEY TO VICTORY

MR SPENDER’S APPEAL “FACE ENEMY AS ONE PEOPLE” ißcc. 11.20 a.m.) Sydney This Day. “Australia is regarded overseas as a backwater of the war. That is the rock bottom of the problem,” declared Mr P. C. Spender a member of the Advisory War Council in a statement on the war situation. For some time now Australian representatives had sat on the Pacific War Council and the British War Cabinet but had failed either to impress Allied strategy with the strategic importance of Australia or to have the Pacific recognised as a primary /.one of the war not inferior in importance to the European zone. There had been much talk ol' a second front but no acknowledgment that the Pacific offered that front. There was no need not to be confident of the final outcome of the war in Australia or elsewhere, but there was a desperate urgent need to apprehend the deep gravity of the position and that the war was going badly for us. “The last people we ought to fool are ourselves,” said Mr Spender, who added: “Time is not with us, it is the most powerful ally of our enemies and the longer our enemies are given to digest their foully-won gains, the more difficult it will be to compel them to disgorge and greater will become the might, of their blows against us.” We spoke of building up overwhelming forces of ships, planes and tanks, Mr Spender continued, when what most we hoped for was to escape the losses which war demanded. We could not escape losses if victory was to be won. and the sooner we realised this the less those losses would be. The key to victory was speed, and Mr Spender appealed to the people of Australia to put aside political differences and face the enemy as one people.—P.A. Special Australian Correspondent.