MOST URGENT TASK

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21624, 9 April 1940, Page 7

MOST URGENT TASK

Tightening Up Of Blockade British Official Wireless RUGBY, April 7. The steps incidental to the Allies determination, announced on Tuesday by the Prime Minister (Mr Chamberlain), to prosecute the economic war against Germany to their utmost power, are the chief subject of comment in the Sunday newspapers. The “Sunday Times” described thp tightening of the economic pressure upon Germany as the most urgent task of the moment, and it considers that “especially on the side of weak neutrals, which lie north-west and south-east of Hitler’s dominions, it has become essential to adopt more drastic policies. The relation to Germany of the neutrals, both in the north-west and south-east, is that of threatened men. Against the Scandinavians and Dutch, she commits outrages with impunity. She sinks their ships and murders their seamen. These are acts of war from which war v culd follow were not the parties so unequally matched.” The "Sunday Times” regards the position of the north-western neutrals as highly paradoxical, since “they have an interest in the Allied victory almost greater than that of the Allies themselves. Not one of them would survive as a free country if Germany were to win the war, yet here they are hardening the rod for their own backs —Sweden and Norway supplying mdispensible iron ore. Neutrals’ Problem ■’lf they will not oluntarjjy stand up for their own interests, we must consider how to (iprsuade them to do so. It will scarcely be possible for us, in solving these problems, to observe throughout t|ie letter of international law against an enemy who tides roughshod over it, both in letter and spirit There are limits to the extent to which rules of any kind can be observed oneSidedly. Certain it is, however, that we Jhall never be the first to break them.”

Mr J. L. Garvin, writing in the “Observer,” states: “The German dilemma is now plain and inexorable. History knows none more fateful. If they wait, conquering supremacy in every respect will pass to the Allies The Nazis must strike or fall.”