BIG EFFORT NEEDED

Southland Times, Issue 24533, 6 September 1941, Page 7

BIG EFFORT NEEDED

GREAT DANGERS MR MACKENZIE KING’S APPEAL (8.0.W.) RUGBY, September 4. The salvation of humanity from years of destructive war and horrors still undreamed of depended on whether the whole resources .and energy of the free world would now be thrown into the struggle, said the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr W. L. Mackenzie King, at the Lord Mayor of London’s luncheon at the Mansion House. What London had already endured, Mr Mackenzie King said, had added to her story a chapter so illustrious that her historic glories paled by comparison. Her citizens still defended the rights of plain ordinary men and women, not only of London, but of the world. “The very name London reverberates around the world like the sound waves of a great bell calling together all who love and cherish freedom,” he declared.

The Canadian people, like Abraham Lincoln, had seen that the world of today could not long continue half slave and half free. They saw the folly of waiting passively for their turn to come. They were fighting to defend democratic and Christian ideals.

“We believe that everything free men value and cherish is in peril—the right of men, rich and poor, to be treated as men, to make laws by which they are to be governed, to work where they will and at what they will, the right of womankind to secure the sanctity of the home, the right of children to play in safety under peaceful heavens, the right of old men to tranquillity at their sunset, the right to speak the truth in our hearts, the right to worship in our own way the God in whom we believe,” he said. GROWING PRODUCTION Canadian war production, continued Mr Mackenzie King, had gained daily in momentum. Canada was making ships, aircraft, motor transport, universal carriers, tanks, field-guns, machineguns, anti-aircraft guns, munitions of many kinds, explosives,- chemicals, radio devices, electrical equipment and a great many other essentials of modern war. Canada was the granary and the storehouse from which they were sending all the food that ships could be found to carry. The Canadian Navy had increased tenfold since the war began. Canada’s greatest contribution io the common cause was her part in the British Commonwealth air training plan whose purpose was the achievement of decisive supremacy in the air. The results already attained far exceeded the original plans. Canada’s new army was as well known in many parts of Britain as it was in Canada. In addition to two operational divisions there were in Britain many thousands of Canadian troops, including a tank brigade and an infantry division which had recently arrived. Before the year was out they would send over still another division—an armoured division. The policy of the Canadian Government was to have its troops serve in those theatres where, viewing the war as a whole, it believed their services would count for most. The Canadian people were proud that today their men were among the defenders of the very heart of the free world.

Mr Mackenzie King said he was more than ever convinced that the dangers they faced together were world-wide dangers.

“The very existence of these islands is threatened,” he said. “At Suez, Gibraltar and throughout the whole Mediterranean there is constant danger of an enemy attack. From the west and the east the security of India is threatened. Menacing clouds hang over Singapore. The most vital sources of British supplies and routes of communication and transportation are everywhere in danger. No greater mistake could be made than to think that British interests alone are menaced by this world encircling danger. The strength, resources and capacity of the enemy are so great that no country which still possesses its freedom and independence is secure. BATTLES OF CONTINENTS “We face battles not of nations but of continents. If tomorrow the world is not to face a battle between the hemispheres it is going to take all the strength that all the free peoples can muster to keep the conflict in this hemisphere and finally extinguish it before the whole world is in flames,” he said. “In every country Hitlerism has found its most useful allies among those who believed they could save themselves by isolation and neutrality while others fought the battles of freedom. Britain without aid far greater than any yet in sight cannot win the struggle for freedom the world over. The war will be far longer, far harder and far more desperate if all free men do not rally to your side while you are at the fullness of your strength. For the task that faces Britain and those who fight with her is nothing less than the task of saving humanity.” The great “northern bridge” which stretched between Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland and Scotland, continued Mr Mackenzie King, was the most vital strategic area in the world today. Across it came vast supplies of war materials, foodstuffs, fighting men and back across it—if “this island bridgehead” should ever be lost—would move the enslaving hordes of the new barbarians.

“That is why the fighting men of Canada are here in growing numbers to share in the task which is our defence as well as yours,” said Mr Mackenzie King. “President Roosevelt has said the American people would do everything in their power to crush Hitler and the Nazi forces. The most important step in crushing Hitler is to make wholly secure this island base from which the final attack must be launched.”

But it became daily clearer, Mr Mackenzie King warned his hearers, that resistance alone would not bring victory.

DANGER OF CHAOS

“Unless the whole of the resources and the total energy of the free world are thrown into the struggle the war may drag on for years carrying in its train famine, pestilence and horrors still undreamed of. So long as the forces of destruction continue to rage there can be no security, no progress and no peace in any corner of the world. Instead, the world will drift more and more towards universal chaos in which the hopes of reconstruction or of a new world order may altogether disappear.” Mr Mackenzie King concluded by saying that the much talked of “new

order” was something bom not made. It is something that lives and breathes, that needs to be developed in the minds and the hearts of men, something that touches the human soul. It expresses itself in goodwill and mutual aid. It is the application in all human relations of the principle of helpfulness and service. It is based not on fear, greed and hate, but on mutual trust and the noblest qualities of the human heart and mind. It seeks neither to divide nor to destroy. Its aim is brotherhood, its method co-operation. “While the ‘Old Order’ is destroying itself this new relationship of men and of nations has already begun its slow but sure evolution. This is the vision which unites, inspires and guides Britain, Canada, and the other nations of the British Commonwealth, the United States and our allies in all parts of the world. No lesser vision will suffice to gain victory.”