A COMMON CAUSE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24261, 1 April 1940, Page 7

A COMMON CAUSE

TASK FOR AIDES CRUSHING HITLERISM NEUTRALS’ ATTITUDE A STATE OF TERROR (British Official Wireless) (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) RUGBY, Mar. 30. (Received Mar. 31, at 8 p.m.) ■ The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr Winston Churchill), in a broadcast, recalled that six months ago he said that if we reached the spring without any great event occurring we should, in fact, have gained an hnnortant success, and he still felt that this additional period of preparation had been an invaluable, help to the Allies. “ Peaceful parliamentary nations have more difficulties in transforming themselves into the cast of a war-making organisation than dictators’ States, who glorify in war ahd feed their young on dreams of conquest. The British Empire and

the French Republic are now joined together in an indissoluble union, so that, their big purposes may be accomplished, and immense progress had been made in almost every direction—in strengthening their forces, in improving their defences, and adapting their whole economy and way of life to of the common cause. Up to the present, time has been on our side, but time is ; a. changeable ally. He may be with you in . one period and against you in another, and then if you come through that other he return again more faithful than before. It seems to me that intensification of the struggle is to be expected and we are certainly by no means inclined to shrink from it.

“ God forbid that we should boast or speak in terms of vain conceit and over-confidence. We have never under-rated the terrible nature of what we undertook when, after striving so long for peace, we set ourselves the task of dealing with the Nazi and German menace in such a fashion as would clear the path of human progress and enable all countries, great and small, old and new, to breathe freely for a long time to come.

“We do'not minimise our task, but we can now measure it in its enormous magnitude more exactly than we could before we came into contact with our adversary on the sea and in the air. We do not conceal from ourselves what trials and tribulations lie before us, far beyond anything We have so far undergone, and we know that supreme exertions will be required from the British and French nations, but we are entitled to recognise the basic facts. Our resources and our manpower, once they are developed, will massively exceed those of the enemy. The British and French races together amount to 110,000,000, against less than 70,000,000 Germans, for you cannot count the 16,000,000 they are holding down by brute force. Through command of the sea, which is-becoming continually more complete, the resources of the world are to a very large extent, open to us, and, surveying the whole scene, we may rightly feel good in the assurance that if we do our best we shall not fail.

“ People often ask me will the war be long or short. It might have been very short perhaps, indeed there might have been no war at all if all the neutral States who share our convictions upon fundamental matters and openly or secretly sympathise with us had stood together at one signal and in one line. We did not count on this and therefore we are not dismayed. We trust in God and in our own arm, uplifted in a cause which we devoutly feel carries with it larger hopes and harmonies of mankind.

- “ But the fact that many of the smaller States in Europe are terrorised by Nazi violence and brutality

Into supplying Germany with materials of modem war may condemn the whole world to a prolonged ordeal, with grievous consequences in many lands. Therefore, I cannot assure you that the war will be short, and still less that it will be easy. It is our duty to try not only to win the war but curtail as far as possible its devouring course.

“Some few weeks ago I spoke about the action of neutral States who have the misfortune to be Germany’s neighbours. We have the greatest sympathy for these forlorn countries, and we understand their dangers and their point of view, but it would not be right or in the general interest that their weakness should feed the aggressor’s strength and fill to overflowing the cup of human woe. There could be no justice if in a life-and-death struggle the aggressor tramples down every sentiment of humanity, and those who resist him remain entangled in the tatters of violated legal conventions. Hardly a day passes without fresh outrages of a cruel, barbarous character being inflicted upon the shipping and sailors of all European countries. Their ships are sunk by mine or torpedo, or by bombs from the air; and their crews murdered or left to perish unless we are able to rescue them. Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, even Italians, and many more .1 could mention, have been victims of Hitler’s murderous deeds.

“In his frenzy, this wicked mam and the criminal regime which he has conceived and erected increasingly turn their malice upon weak, lonely, and, above all, unarmed vessels of countries with which Germany is still supposed to have friendly relations.

“In British and French convoys there is safety. Only cne in 800 neutral ships which have resorted to our protection has been, sunk, but outside the shelter of the Allied navies merciless, baffled, pent-up spite 'is wrought upon all who come within the Nazi clutch. Nearly 200 neutral ships have been destroyed and nearly 1000 neutral seamen have been slaughtered in Hitler’s frantic endeavour to terrorise all who seek trade with the British Isles. During the last fortnight 14 neutral ships have been sunk, and only one British ship. After all it is we who are his foes. Such form of warfare has never been practised since the effectual suppression of piracy on the high seas. And this is the monstrous, power which even the very neutrals who have suffered and are suffering most are forced to supply with means of future aggression. This is the power before whom, even while they writhe in anger, they are forced to bow, and whose victory they are compelled to aid even though, as they well know, that victory would mean their own enslavement. Why, only yesterday, while sailors, from . a British submarine were carrying ashore on stretchers eight emaciated Dutchmen whom they had rescued after six days’ exposure in an open boat, Dutch aviators, in the name of strict neutrality and impartial orthodoxy, were shooting down a British aircraft which had lost its way. I do not x-eproach the Dutch, our valiant of former days. My heart goes out to them in their peril and distress, dwelling as they do in a cage with a tiger, but when we are asked to take as a matter of course interpretations of neutrality which give all the advantages to the aggressor and inflict all the disadvantages upon the defenders of freedom, I recall the saying of the late Lord Balfour, ‘this is a singularly illcontrived world, but not so illcontrived as that.’ ”