The Southland Times TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1941. England Speaks

Southland Times, Issue 24421, 29 April 1941, Page 4

The Southland Times TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1941. England Speaks

MR CHURCHILL’S speech, one of the noblest he has ever made, was not intended to soothe British people into a comfortable belief that victory is a gift which can be received without exertion or sacrifice. To have spoken with an easy confidence to men and women who are enduring the worst shocks of the war in their scarred and smoking cities would have been a failure in the wisdom and courage of a great leadership. By speaking directly of the civil population, its tenacity and even its exaltation during the long bombardment, the Prime Minister at once focused the attention of his listeners on the main theatre of the war. It is in Britain and in the Atlantic that victory must be won. He did not attempt, by this placing of emphasis, to deny the significance of events in the Middle East. The withdrawal of the British forces in Libya was described frankly as a “vexatious and damaging defeat.” But it occurred because the Army of the Nile (whose astonishing smallness is revealed for the first time) had to be weakened by the transfer of troops and equipment to Greece. If any doubt of the need for such action still lurked in the minds of Australian and New Zealand people it must now be finally removed. There was a fair chance that a Greek resistance, stiffened by British and Anzac forces, would encourage a last-minute political and military unity in the Balkans. Although Mr Churchill did not mention Turkey it seems probable that his hopes had rested on that country’s timely participation. At this late hour it is almost incredible that a neutral country in the path of German aggression could continue to believe that it might escape by remaining still, or that it could fight unaided with any real chance of success. Yet the decision was made; the battle was lost; and it is too late to talk of what might have been. But it is not too late to remember that a moral necessity, stronger than any political or strategic considerations, was the determining factor in Britain’s decision to fight in Greece. An empire pledged to overthrow the enemies of freedom could not reject an appeal for help from a small nation that had earned the gratitude and admiration of the democracies. “There are rules against that sort of thing,” said Mr Churchill, “and to break those rules would be 'fatal to the honour of the British Empire, without which we could neither hope nor deserve to win.” It is this insistance on a moral viewpoint which measures the gulf between the British and German outlook. And it measures, too, the difficulties, the losses and gains accumulating on both sides. Unweighted by moral considerations, the Germans are free to plan their strategy in the cold light of military requirements: even to exploit the humaneness of Britain at every opportunity. This harsh directness of purpose has given them victories. But it has also heaped upon them the obloquy of civilized mankind, and roused against them the spirit of a people determined literally “to conquer or die.” Mr Churchill understands that moral force is not merely a question of words and sentiments. His indirect appeal to the United States was based on the assumption that honesty in motive and deed must stimulate in free men the “flash of resolve” to share the effort and the battle. He ended his speech with a stanza from Clough’s fine poem, a challenge to Americans to make sure that there is indeed'a brightness in the West. The whole of this poem, written in the comfortable midVictorian years, sounds as if it came from the heart of the present conflict. All of it could have been quoted fittingly; but the second stanza has a meaning that should be studied wherever British people are being asked to share the struggle:

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.