MR CHURCHILL’S PRAISE

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

MR CHURCHILL’S PRAISE

“TIME IS SHORT; THE STRUGGLE IS DIRE” MESSAGE FOR CANADIANS (8.0.W.) RUGBY, September 4. The Prime Minister, Mr Winston Churchill, speaking at the Mansion House luncheon to the Prime Minister of. Canada, Mr W. L. Mackenzie King, said that the present occasion would stand out vividly as one on which the city was entertaining so many military representatives of the Dominions and had as its guest of honour the Prime Minister of Canada.

“Today we have listened to a memorable and momentous declaration made here amid our ruins in London, a declaration which will resound throughout the Empire and be carried to all parts of the world by the marvellous mechanism of modern life and modern war,” said Mr Churchill. “We have listened to a speech which I think to all who heard it will fully explain the long and continued authority which Mr Mackenzie King has wielded during more than 15 years in which he has held different offices in Canada. He has spoken of the immense burden we have to bear, of our unflinching resolve to persevere and to carry forward our standards in common and he has also struck the note —never absent from our minds—that no lasting peace

or perfect solution of the difficulties with which we are now confronted and no aversion of that bad fate by which the whole world is menaced can be achieved without the full co-operation in every field of all the nations which as yet lie outside the range of the conqueror’s power. CALL FOR UNITY “I am grateful to Mr Mackenzie King today for having put in terms perhaps more pointed than I as Prime Minister would use the overpowering sense we have that time is short, that the struggle is dire and that all the free men of the world must stand together in one line if humanity is to be spared the deepening, darkening and widening tragedy which can lead only to something in the nature of immediate world chaos. “I hope that during his all too brief visit here he will find himself able to see with his own eyes what we have gone through and also will be able to feel the unconquerable uplift of energy and resolve which will carry this old island through the storm and carry with it also much which is precious to mankind.” Referring to the presence of Canadian troops in Britain Mr Churchill said: “We have felt very c much with them that they have not had the chance of coming tp close quarters with the enemy. It is not their fault, it is not our fault. But there they stand and there they have stood for the whole critical period of the last 15 months, at the very point where they would be the first to be hurled in a counter stroke; against the enemy. No greater service could be given to this country, and no more important military duty could be performed by any troops among all our Allies. It seems to me that, although they may have felt envy of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa whose troops have been in action, the part that they have played in bringing about the final result is second to none.” CANADA’S ASSISTANCE In conclusion, speaking of Canada’s war effort, Mr Churchill said. “Your efforts in men, ships and aircraft, in air training, in finance and in food contain the element in the resistance of the British Empire without which that resistance could not be successfully maintained. Canada is the linch-pin of the English-speaking world. Canada, with her close relations of friendly and affectionate intimacy with the United States on the one hand and her unswerving fidelity to the British Commonwealth and the Motherland on the other, is the link which joins together these great branches of the human family.”