The Southland Times. TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1941. Trials to Come

Southland Times, Issue 24339, 21 January 1941, Page 4

The Southland Times. TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1941. Trials to Come

FROM the time when Mr Churchill took office as Prime Minister and warned the nation that he baa nothing to offer it but blood, toil, tears and sweat, he has not once attempted to gloss over unpleasant facts or pretended that victory was close and easily gained. On the contrary, in every speech he has made he has laid emphasis on the gravity of the task that confronts the Empire and on the sufferings that must be endured before it is accomplished. Even the successes in Greece, the Mediterranean and North Africa—successes which he describes as “beyond our dreams”—have not caused him to forget for one moment that the heaviest trials are still to come. “Before us lie months of endurance and the bombardment of our cities and industrial areas without power to make equal reply,” he said in a speech at Glasgow which was reported in a cable message yesterday. “Before us lie terrible sufferings and tribulations.’' These are straight and frank words. They mean that for all her efforts Britain is still far from achieving air parity with the enemy. British raids over Germany are increasing each month in scope and intensity, but she is still unable to throw into the fight as heavy concentrations of bombers as the enemy, or to use them from such convenient bases. In the night bombing coniest into which the air war is developing, all the heroism of Royal Air Force pilots and the superiority of their machines cannot make up for the deficiency in numbers. So the British people must submit, for months to come, to heavier blows from the air than they can return, to the mass bombing of ships and ports and the laying waste of industrial cities. It is a grim prospect; but, as Mr Churchill knows, they will be the better able to face it if they understand what is in store for them than if they are misled by false optimism. Those who make ready for the worst are best prepared and armed against disappointment. The Prime Minister did not declare, as Mr Bevin did two months ago, that “in another six months we shall have passed Germany.” All he could offer his people was the hope that some time this .year or by 7 the beginning of next year they would cease to be at a disadvantage against the enemy, in the air or on land. “But I have absolutely no doubt,” he ended, “that we will win a complete and decisive victory over the forces of evil.” The resolution which is expressed in those words, and which is shared by the whole Empire, is strengthened by 7 the honesty 7 and fearlessness with which the British Prime Minister confides in his people.