LORD MILNE IS CONFIDENT

Southland Times, Issue 23988, 1 December 1939, Page 8

LORD MILNE IS CONFIDENT

“GREAT SNOWBALL OF NATIONAL EFFORT” ABILITY TO CRUSH NAZI MENACE (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, November 29. Field-Marshal Lord Milne, who for seven years before 1933 was Chief of the Imperial General Staff, in a speech in the Address-in-Reply debate to the Throne in the House of Lords, declared that "the great snowball of the national effort of the British Empire” and its military efficiency was gradually but steadily gaining weight, and, if properly directed, would crush to pieces the German menace. This confident prediction followed a survey of the ideals which inspired Britain’s effort. Lord Milne recalled the unforgettable scene at Westminster Abbey at the Coronation, when, in front of the King, was carried the Sword of Mercy, flanked on either side by the drawn swords of temporal and spiritual justice. “Those emblems,” he said, stood for something real and tangible, for the dominating belief of this nation, in the

quality of mercy and in our fixed resolution that every man should be accorded justice in things spiritual as well as temporal.” Those were the ideals for which this nation had drawn swords today and if they had not drawn their swords on this occasion the swords of pageantry would have been for ever empty baubles of no meaning. The freedom and liberty for which they had fought for before were again at stake. As a soldier of 55 years’ service under five Sovereigns nothing had caused greater admiration in him than the attitude of the country in the present crisis.