THE REBUILDING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24633, 14 June 1941, Page 9

THE REBUILDING

NOT BY GERMAN HANDS HITLER’S FATE SEALED BRITAIN GROWING STRONGER <Rec. 8.30 p.m.) RUGBY, June 12. “We cannot tell what the course of this fell war will be as it spreads remorselessly through ever wider regions,” said Mr Churchill in his speech at St. James’s Palace. “We know it will be hard, and we expect it will be long. We cannot predict or measure its episodes or its tribulations. “But one thing is certain. It will not be by German hands that the structure of Europe will be rebuilt. or the union of the European family achieved. In every country into which the German armies or the Nazi police have broken there has sprung up a hatred of the German name and contempt for the Nazi creed which the passage of hundreds of years will not efface from human memory. “ We cannot yet see how deliverance will come or when it will come, but nothing is more certain than that every trace, of Hitler’s footsteps and every stain of his infected and corroding fingers will be sponged and purged, and, if need be, blasted from the surface of the earth. We are here to affirm and fortify our union in that ceaseless and unwearying effort Which must be made if the captive peoples are to be set free. Nazi Dominion Must Be Broken “A year -ago his Majesty’s Government was left alone to face the storm, and to many of our friends and enemies alike it may have seemed that our days, too. were numbered. But I may with some pride remind your Excellencies that even in that dark hour we proclaimed to all men and not only to ourselves our determination not to make peace until every one of the ravaged and enslaved countries had been liberated, and until Nazi dominion was broken and destroyed. “ See how far we have travelled since then. Our solid, stubborn strength has stood an awful test. We are masters of our own air and we now reach out in ever-growing retribution upon the enemy. The Royal Navy holds the seas, the Italian Fleet cowers diminished in its harbours, the German Navy is largely crippled or sunk, and murderous raids upon our ports, cities, and factories have been powerless to quench the spirit of the British nation and arrest our national life or check the immense expansion of our war industry. Food and arms from across the oceans are coming safely in, while full provision to replace all the sunken tonnage is being made, and still more by our friends «in the United States. We are becoming an armed community. Our land forces are being perfected in equipment and training. •• Hitler may turn and trample this way and that through tortured Europe; he may spread his curse far and wide and carry his curse with him: he may break into Africa or into Asia, but it is here in this island fortress that he will have to reckon in the end. and we shall , strive to resist by land and sea. We shall be on his track wherever he goes. “ Our air power will continue to teach the German homeland that war is not all loot and triumph: we shall aid and stir the people of every conqueredcountry ,to resistance and revolt, and we shall break up and derange every effort which Hitler makes to systematise and consolidate his subjugations. He will find no peace, no rest, no halting place, and no parley, and if he is driven to desperate hazards and attempts an invasion of the British Isles, as well he may, we shall not flinch from the supreme trial. With the help of God, of which we must all feel daily conscious, we shall continue steadfast in faith and duty till our. task is done. A Message of Hope ( “This, then, is the message which we send forth to-day to all States and nations, bound or free; to all men in all lands who care for freedom’s cause; to our Allies and well-wishers in Europe, and to our American friends and helpers who are drawing ever closer in their might across the ocean. This is the message—lift up your hearts: all will come right. Out of the depths of sorrow and sacrifice will be born again the glory of mankind.” Speeches in support of the resolution adopted at the meeting were made by representatives of the Allied Governments present. In closing the proceedings Mr Anthony Eden said that it was not possible to hold such meetings continuously, but he hoped that this meeting might represent the inauguration of a new phase of collaboration, and that it might form part of the machinery through which victory would be won and by which peace would be maintained after victory.