"HIS INDOMITABLE SPIRIT HAS INSPIRED US ALL"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23827, 30 November 1940, Page 1 (Supplement)

"HIS INDOMITABLE SPIRIT HAS INSPIRED US ALL"

The Nazi hordes had in a few weeks swept Europe from the Vistula to the sea like an avalanche. The enemy was at our gates in apparently resistless might, and to the eyes of the world it might have seemed that all was over and that the great fabric that Pitt had built was foundering with those of Nineveh and Tyre. Most grievous of all, our one great ally who gave us a foothold in Europe had been crushed like an egg-shell. It was in that dire moment that our nation found itself. It was not stricken with despair. It was exalted by a sudden and overwhelming peril, and from that moment it has never looked back. It never will. At the Helm In that transfiguration it was Mr. Churchill who sounded the bugle call. The hour that had brought the crowning disaster had brought us the man who alone of all our millions could have uttered the proud boast of Pitt without suspicion of arrogance. Whatever may lie before us and whatever may be the issue of th<* struggle the .British nation will never forget the sombre grandeur with which, over the terrilic wreckage of shattered France, Mr. Churchill inspired the country with his own indomitable and victorious spirit. "Mood and toil, tears and sweat," were to be our portion, but in the end historv would see in this tremendous epoch' "England's finest hour." And history will not fail to see also in bis presence at the helm of "that fostering star" which, as the poet says, has helped to "make us what wo are." For Mr. Churchill's whole life has been an apprenticeship for this ordeal, and the versatility of his genius has given him an unrivalled equipment for its fulfilment. Into Every War Afoot He has taken the whole gamut of human activities for his heritage and he has touched few things that he has hot adorned. Action is the breath of his being, and his life has been a gallop of adventure since the far off days when, fresh from Sandhurst, he wriggled himself into every war that was afoot, from the Malakand expedition in Asia to the River War in North Africa, the Boer War in South Africa and the Cuban War in America. And having sated his appetite for the battlefield (writing half a dozen books and learning the crajt of the orator by lecturing in Englaiiu and America in the intervals of fighting) he rode up

to Westminster to have his "shot at politics" and with his famous denunciation of Mr. Broderick established himself as the man of the future.

From the beginning ho fought, like Hal o' th' Wynd, "for his own hand." He was the despair of party whins and party caucuses, and followed _th? argument whithersoever his imperious spirit led him. "There are two parties in this House: I am one of them," he might have said with a wit of other days.

THE Rt. Hon. Winston Leonard Spcnoer-Churchill, Prime Minister of Britain, was born on November ,30, 187-1. The position he/ holds to-day is without parallel in our history. He is that contradiction in terms —the Dictator of Democracy. He has not, in the manner of the Hitlers and Mussolinis, and Stalins, seized power by cunning and" force, and the suppression of popular' liberties. He has emerged like a natural element by the authority of an indisputable genius and the 'sanction of a free, self-governing people. For anything approaching a parallel to his case we have to go back nearly two centuries —to the days when, in the midst of another crisis, the

national voice over-rode the hostility of King and courtiers, and gave the elder Pitt that brief, thrilling season of power in which he laid the foundation of the British Empire, which is fighting lor its existence to-day. "1 know that 1 can save this country," said Pitt, "and I know that no one else can." The country believed him and the event showed that his august self-confidence was justified, and that in in a supreme emergency the popular instinct for leadership is inspired. Mr. Churchill is as conspicuously,our Man of Destiny now as William Pitt was then. It is no accident that it "Was in the darkest hour which ever confronted the British Empire that the spirit of the people soared highest.

The Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill, who is Sixty-six To-day, Will Let Nothing Shake His Confidence in Victory

WHOLE CAREER WAS A PREPARATION FOR THIS HOUR

By A. G. GARDINER

our time. Ana in his intervals of leisure ho wrote a series of monumental works that would alone have been sufficient output for a normal lifetime. Seen in the fierce light ol to-day, all his career has been a preparation for this hour of destiny. Even the tragedy of his exclusion from office from 1931, onwards has bad its part in the preparation. It is possible that history will say that but for that exclusion this calamity would not have happened. We cannot know, for it must he remembered that it was not only the Government but the nation also that refused to see the meaning of Nazi Germany or to listen to Churchill s warnings. But when the storm burst it was those warnings that turned the mind of the nation with one consent to Mr. Churchill as the Man of Destiny. Closing Nation's Ranks Events have ratified the choice. Mr. Churchill's leadership has inspired the nation and closed its ranks. His courage sustained us in that dark hour of misgiving when France was betrayed to the enemy. He is the one great figure on the European stage who played a leading role in the Great War. He helped to carry ns to victory then. We believe that with God's help he will carry us to victory now. . Nothing can shake Mr. Churchill s confidence in the ultimate defeat of the barbarians. His wonderful facility for putting his thoughts into words has encouraged and inspired us through recent months. Greatest of all perhaps, was his broadcast to the world a few weeks ago. Our Empire's leader_ said: "It is with devout but sure confidence that I say: 'Let God defend the right.' "These cruel, wanton, indiscriminate bombings of London are, of course, a part of Hitler's invasion plan. He iiopes, by killing large numbers of civilians and women and children, that he will terrorise and cow the people of this mighty Imperial city and make them a burden and anxiety to the Government, and thus distract our attention unduly from the ferocious onslaught he is preparing. "Fire in British Hearts" "Little does he know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre of the Londoners, whose forbears _ played a leading part in the establishment of Parliamentary institutions, and who have been bred to value freedom far above their lives. "This wicked man, the repository and embodiment of many forms of souldestroying hatred, this monstrous product of former wrongs and shames, lias now resolved to try to break our

But political ostracism could not keep him from the centre of the stage. Constituencies rejected him, party managers disowned him and again and again he was pronounced politically dead. But his genius was irrepressible and whatever the Government in office, his seat 011 the Treasury bench seemed a freehold. He filled more great offices than any statesman in history and acquired a knowledge of the whole machine of democratic government unequalled in

famous island spirit by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruction. "What he has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts here and all over the world which will glow_ long after all traces of tbe conflagrations he has caused in London have been removed. "He has lighted a fire which will burn with a steady and consuming flame until the last vestiges of Nazi tyrannv have been burnt out of Europe and until the old world and the new can join hands to rebuild the temples of man's freedom and man's honour upon foundations which will not soon or easily be overthrown. "This is the time for everyone to stand together and hold firm, as they are doing. I express my admiration for the exemplary manner in which all the A.R.P. services of London are being discharged. Especially the fire: brigades, whose work has been so heavy and also dangerous.

"All the world thai is still! free marvels at <the composure * and fortitude with which the citizens ofLondon are facing and surmounting the great ordeal to which they are subjected; the end of which or the severity of which cannot yet be foreseen. "It is a message of good cheer to our fighting forces, oil the seas, in. the 'air, and in our waiting armies, in all their posts and stations, that we send tliem from the capital city. They know that they have behind them a people who will not flinch or weary of the struggle, hard and protracted though it will*be, but that we shall rather draw from /the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival, and of a victory Avon, not only ,for ourselves but for all —a victory won not only for our own time but for the long and better days that are to come." ' ' • AMEN: SO BE IT.