FATEFUL DAYS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVIII, Issue 125, 22 July 1940, Page 3

FATEFUL DAYS.

“OUR HEARTS ARE STRONG” BRITAIN ON GUARD. We are this moment—the supreme test in the 1000 years’ history of Great Britain. All the pride and glory and tradition that we have inherited from our forefathers must now be defended or for ever lost (wrote Mr Ward Price in the “Daily Mail” of June 18th). No generation of Britons has ever borne so instant and heavy a responsibility as ours. Let us take stock of our capacity to meet it. First and foremost, the spirit of our nation is still strong. Until a few weeks ago we had been badly governed and incompetently led Yet the material which, under more vigorous and clear-sighted command, might have done so much remains available. If effective organisation is found for it, we can still face up to the vital and imminent task of defending British territory against an enemy who now commands the Continent of Europe. RECRIMINATIONS VAIN. It is useless to ask where lies the responsibility for the overthrow of all our calculations. We do not know why, after 14 months of supposedly intensive perparation for war, almost the entire military equipment of the nation was what the B.E.F. took with it into Belgium and was forced to leave behind at the evacuation.

There is no time to inquire why our young men of 23, passed as A 1 last December, have not yet been called up for training. It is too late to reproach the complacent Ministers, who, throughout eight precious months, allowed the national energies to be dissipated on sport and the maintenance of our normal standards of comfortable existence.

When, six months ago, I wrote an article under the heading, “This Is War,—Not Sport,” I received a flood of letters that revealed how bitterly great numbers of British men and women resented the failure to use the national energies that were so freely offered. Let us not waste our time on recrimination now. The vital question is: What must we do to be saved from the dangers that beset us?

Our main defect is lack of organisation. We ourselves can, to some extent, repair it. Whatever the financial upheaval caused, whatever vested interests stand in the way, non-essen-tial activities within Great Britain must cease.

The Government took to itself great powers under the National Emergency Act. Let it now employ them by directing the energies of people in superfluous occupations to more useful tasks. UNTRAINED YOUTH. A beginning should be made with all the young men of military age registered but waiting to be called up. If one thing more than another took the heart out of the French it was the knowledge that, while they were fighting for their lives, hundreds of thousands of the youth of Britain were left unembodied and untrained. We know the excuses that are put forward—lack of equipment, lack of uniforms, lack of camp accommodation. As the “Daily Mail” has urged again and again, the preliminary training of our young soldiers could he begun without equipment. As for uniforms, it is fantastic that women’s auxiliary organisations should be .wearing khaki and Air Force blue while we are short of material to provide our soldiers with battle dress. And, with regard to accommodation, troops in training may well dispense .with hutments and camp beds, for they will have no such shelter and comfort in the field. If those in authority face the factsof our present dangerous situation, they will find the country ready to bear any hardships and sacrifices that may be necessary. If we have been complacent and easy-going in the past, that fact has kept our nervous strength intact. We enter upon a period of strain and peril with our hearts strong and our physical and mental energies intact. STRENGTH OF DEFENCES. And now our island situation, which for 900 years has saved us from invasion, will yet again contribute to our defence. With all the coastline from Northern Norway to Western France in the hands of our enemies, raids upon our shores are inevitable. But the British Navy is there to cut such landing parties off from their supplies, while within these islands are more trained troops than at any time in our history. Moreover, our Air Force, whose individual superiority this war has demonstrated beyond all question, will henceforth have the advantage of operating from its home bases instead of having to range overseas in search of its enemies.

Above all, in this hour of our dire need, we must look for that Divine protection which has brought Britain through so many dangers in the past. .As a nation we have neglected the God of our fathers, but “the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot »*ye. ’ ’