LONDON PEOPLE DETERMINED

Southland Times, Issue 24238, 23 September 1940, Page 6

LONDON PEOPLE DETERMINED

Ancient City Faces Greatest Ordeal

“NAVY GUARDS SECURITY OF WORLD”

(British Official Wireless)

(Received September 22, 6.30 p.m.)

RUGBY, September 21.

A spirited repudiation of the suggestion that Britain is a beleaguered fortress was made in a broadcast address to America by the Lord Mayor of London (Sir Harry Coxen), spoken in his absence because of a slight cold by a former Lord Mayor, Sir William Broadbridge.

“Just look for a moment at this England of ours,” he said. “It is the home of men and women resolutely preparing themselves for the supreme task in British history. Night by night flies out from this island the spearhead of our attack on Nazi Germany. That spearhead is the Royal Air Force, whose heroic exploits are known to all the world, but even these brave men of the air could not give us command of the seas if the British fleet did not hold the ocean around our shores against all comers. Hope and freedom in the world would die. Who, except Dr Goebbels, could suggest that Britain is besieged today when our ships bring us daily and in safety the food we eat and the steel, copper, oil and cotton we need for our effort in the war. We are daily revictualled and replenished from the granaries and arsenals of the world and week by week our export trade is carried out over the seven seas. This is no idle boast. It is the plain, honest truth, but do not imagine that we can keep our seaports open to receive the rich cargoes of the outer world without paying the price and a very heavy price. “Patrols of the Royal Navy are guarding not only the shores of Britain, but the security of the whole world. We stand today facing the greatest crisis of our history, looking to victory sure and complete with the banner bearing our ancient motto ‘Domine dirige nos.’ ” Referring to the present trials London is undergoing, the Lord Mayor said that London has known in the past moments when all she most valued, liberty and life itself, were at stake, but never in her long annals had she been called upon to face an ordeal so cruel and so searching. Her long established traditions of safe and settled ways had been assaulted as never before and her peaceful citizens had been subjected to the ruthless cruelty of an embittered foe bent on her destruction.

“Today London stands as the very bulwark of civilization and freedom as we know it,” said the Lord Mayor. “It is the greatest responsibility the world has ever known. This red earth of our countryside, these paved streets of my city, built on Roman foundations, shall and will be de«mded to the last. London city has <i».metimes in her history been attacked, but never sacked.”