The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1944 FIGHT FOR GALICIA GATE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24878, 27 April 1944, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1944 FIGHT FOR GALICIA GATE

Soviet war reporting has a number of characteristics which make it desirable at times to turn to sources other than the communiques from Moscow for information on the long eastern front. The present is such an occasion, For several days the impression left by the official statements from Moscow and the comments of correspondents has been of a general lull on the front while the Soviet armies are regrouping for a continuation of their great offensive. This is probably true; all will hope it is so. But by reading between the lines it can be inferred there is considerable fighting in the sector between the Pass of the Tartars in the Carpathians through Nad worn a and Stanislawow to a little north of Tarnopol. This sector is vital to the Germans, and it should not cause surprise that they have developed a local counter-offensive there. They claim to have cleared Nadworna and to be within a mile of Kolomyja, the last big railway centre in Poland before the main line passes into Rumania at Cernauti. Concurrently, Berlin reports that Marshal Zhukov's First Ukrainian Army is counter-attack-ing to retake the ground which the enemy says he captured in the counter-offensive. If they follow their usual procedure, the Russians are unlikely to discuss these activities until they are over. If they win they will proclaim the victory with vigour; if, unfortunately, the day goes against them, students of the war will be left to deduce the fact from the enumeration of place names in later communiques. That has been customary all through the war in Russia and must be kept in mind when attention is focussed on that front. The area under review has been described as the Galicia Gate and sometimes optimistically as the '■' Gate to Berlin." It is a favoured highway in Russian strategy. Before Munich, it was the road along which the Soviet armies were to march to the aid of Czechoslovakia, with or without Polish consent. Today, the gate opens the way to several possibilities. It, gives access to Warsaw and Hungary by means, of a right or a left wheel. Straight ahead along the Carpathian foothills lie Cracow and the great industrial district of Silesia. From this area, the invader out of the east might move north-west to Berlin or turn south-west through the Moravian Gate to Vienna. These are prospects awaiting a further victorious Soviet thrust. The dangers are fully appreciated by the German General Staff, which has available voluminous literature on the subject. To prevent any of these possibilities becoming realities action was to be expected. But there is another vital reason why the German armies should make a stand well in front of Lwow. Their principal northsouth communication artery runs from Gdynia and Danzig through Warsaw and Lublin to Lwow and thence by Stanislawow to Cernauti and so to the Rumanian oilfields and the mouth of the Danube. Day and night the Germans shuttled their trains up and down this line until it was cut by Marshal Zhukov at Cernauti and Kolomyja. About 100 miles of it between Stanislawow and Suceava are now in Russian hands. There is no other north-south line extending all the way through plains from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The next shuttle line through Hungary winds its way across the Carpathians and is not suitable for continuous traffic. One other alternative is the old Balkan Express line through Budapest to Bucharest. It is a roundabout route and Marshal Tito's Partisans are paying it attention. Recently it was mentioned that the German Supreme Command had strengthened Field-Marshal Mannstein's "army of resistance" in the Lwow sector. He had as little success in stemming the Russian advance as he had had elsewhere. On Monday it was reported that Mannstein had been replaced by FieldMarshal' Model who, as late as last month, had taken over from von Kuechler on the northern front when the latter permitted the Russians to break through too quickly. Additional evidence of the importance the enemy attach to this artery is to be found in the resistance they have offered at Pascani, lasi and Chisinau and on the lower reaches of the Dniester. Had their divisions been routed there was not much hope for them in this terrain. It is not unlikely that they will be forced to vacate these points by the new offensive reported to-day, but, in the meantime, they may have improved the defences of the Sereth and its eastern tributary, the Barladul, both of which cover the railway to Bucharest and the oilfields. It is of. interest, also, that it is now admitted the Germans have an airfield near Sebastopol which they are using to cover their withdrawal or aid the defence, whichever viewpoint is taken. Viewpoints aside, the fact I emerges that the Germans on the I eastern front can still fight hard and | that the staff is capable of planning intelligently. THE SAVINGS BANK The Auckland Savings Bank has particular reason to be proud of the effective pa;t it is playing on the financial front of the war effort. Its role is a double one. It is helping substantially to augment the war loans both by direct subscription and through its agency. It is also helping to fight the battle against inflation and for stabilisation by providing the means of conserving some of the excess purchasing power in the hands of the people and of storing it with increase against the day when it can be expended to greater individual and national advantage. This was said in one sentence but most impressively by General Smuts when be wrote : "Thrift is at all times one of the corner stones of national welfare and pros perity, but at a time like the present the citizen who practises thrift is not only helping himself by laying up treasure for the future and preparing himself to meet the contingencies of life, but is also performing a most valuable public service;

for the country as a whole derives increased stability from the fact that a large proportion of its citizens become in effect shareholders in the State and help in maintaining normal economic conditions." The Auckland Savings Bank has been a missionary for thrift for almost 97 years and an active educator in schools, business houses and factories. A remarkable result is that it numbers 236,649 accounts in the Auckland urban area with a population somewhat below that figure. E*en more remarkable is that depositors' balances amount to £13,660,000, or about £'6o per head of population. hen, in addition, the large business transacted in Auckland by the Post Office Savings Bank, building societies and other thrift institutions is remembered, it can be seen that underlying the surface manifestations of frivolity and living for the day, there is a solid and enduring foundation. The Auckland Savings Bank was the pioneer in laying it down and still leads in j .keeping it firm. THE BRITISH BUDGET The people of Britain have manfully borne such crushing war burdens that a sympathetic world | will share their relief at not having to meet any new tax imposts this year. The fact is that taxation has "reached the limit—some would say, had passed it. Indeed the Chancellor of the Exchequer has actually eased the load carried by small traders. One commentator remarked yesterday that the British people in this war are paying more and eating less than any other of the Western Allies. Sir John Anderson has said they are to pay no more and New Zealand must help to ensure that they eat no less than they are doing now. A strong point in the present and last year's Budget is that more than half the astronomical total of expenditure is met out of revenue. Few wartime Governments can show a record as creditable, not even the American Government with all the wealth of the United States to back it. In New Zealand's last Budget, total estimated revenue of £87,000,000 was set against expenditures of £213,000,000, the proportion being about twofifths. It is questionable, moreover, whether any other people are spending less of their income than the people of Britain. Just before the war they were, spending threequarters of their income on personal consumption ; two years ago the proportion was less than three-fifths, and last year little more than a half. Pat in another way, it means that out of every £l a British citizen received in 1943, he spent only 10s 7d on himself, his family, and his pleasures. The remaining 9s scl was taken in taxes or saved and invested in war loans. Could any other country produce a higher average or show a more practical and universal spirit of self-sacrifice?