THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, October 24, 1939. FEELING THE PINCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23947, 24 October 1939, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, October 24, 1939. FEELING THE PINCH

The British War Minister, Mr Hore Belisha, broadcasting at the end of the seventh week of the war, has declared that time is unquestionably on the side of the Allies. That the time factor is being used to the fullest advantage by the Allied High Commands, both at sea and on land, has already been emphasised. Their apparently passive approach to the gigantic problems confronting them has doubtless largely prompted the opinion, said to be entertained by the German public, that this is a " queer war." There have been no massed attacks or large-scale offensives on the Western Front, no aggressive raiding on the part of either the French or British air forces except the very early attacks on Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, no spectacular actions involving the fleets. Not for the first time in recent history Germany is finding herself opposed by strategists who place considerable reliance on the tactics of attrition. On the high seas the blockade is being relentlessly enforced, with results which, as is plain from the evidence, are causing Nazi uneasiness to develop into positive alarm. It is the view of certain observers that the persistent air activity by German raiders over the North Sea is an indication that the U-boat campaign has gravely disappointed the hopes of its originators in its capacity to break the blockade, and that air bombers are' therefore being employed in an intensified attempt to reduce the margin of British superiority in warships and thus ease the clamping hold of the Allies on shipping directed to German ports. If that is so and the steadily-growing accumulation of contraband taken by the Allied war vessels certainly supports the theory—then the results so far attained must also be definitely disheartening to the Nazis. It is true that two important naval successes have attended the efforts of U-boat commanders, in the sinking of the aircraft-carrier Courageous and the battleship Royal Oak. But naval losses, regrettable though they are, were to be expected. Indeed, the people of Great Britain and France were prepared for reverses of a more serious nature, nor do they dismiss the likelihood of additional German successes at sea as the outcome of submarine or bombing attacks. The fact remains, nevertheless, that the losses so far sustained are slight in' comparison with the fleet resources possessed by the Allies, and that the effectiveness of the blockade has been in no way impaired by enemy action designed to open a way through the patrolled areas for shipping carrying urgentlyneeded cargoes, to Germany. Drastic rationing tells a tale of declining supplies of essential consumer goods in the Reich, while there is the authority of the Economist, a wellinformed publication, that the continuance of trade, between Germany and her neutral neighbours is daily becoming more difficult to contrive. Meanwhile German ships of war continue to take heavy toll of neutral shipping, and the Nazis threaten that the net spread for the neutrals will be enlarged if advantage is taken of the British convoy system to ensure the safe passage of cargoes. The answer to that threat lies largely in the fact that, since the establishment of the convoy, British merchant shipping has enjoyed something very nearly approaching immunity from interference. This represents a tribute to the value of the convoy which neutral Governments are well in a position to appreciate. Coincidentally there has been a known reduction in the German U-boat fleet of considerable dimensions, while air raids on convoy squadrons and on naval objectives on the. Scottish coast have failed signally to raise the Nazi hopes of securing any loosening of the blockade in the near future by duplication of the means of attack. German air losses in the raids of the past week or ten days have also been heavy, in proportion to the numbers engaged, while on each occasion the defending fighter squadrons have added to the discomfiture of their opponents by emerging almost scathless from the combat. There are clearly no grounds for Nazi complacency in these facts, which the German propaganda machine may deny, but which Herr Hitler and his advisers dare not ignore, although they may be led by them into the employment of even more desperate measures of retaliation.