INADEQUATE ANSWERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1941, Page 5

INADEQUATE ANSWERS

The journal “New Statesman" says: "Official opinion seems to consider that nothing on the Western Front is possible. Apparently the British General Staff regards the risks as too great; equipment, especially shipping is short; the Government, fears another Dunkirk or Crete: and the British diversion could not be more than a large-scale raid of no substantial assistance to Russia. “No section of the Press regards these answers as adequate. Everyone doubts whether the experts arc fully alive to the extreme urgency of the situation. Leningrad. Moscow and the Ukraine are just as much parts of the British front as the Belgian frontier once was and the cliffs of Dover may be. “The risks seem to be less than the risk of inaction. The German front from Narvik to the Mediterranean is thinly held by second-class troops. A diversion would seem possible in Norway, the Iberian peninsula dr even France.

“The first necessity is to hasten aid of every description to the Russians, who are fighting the battle of Britain as well as the battle of Russia. The common people and the workers of Britain must be taken far more into the Government's confidence. They must be convinced by the appointment of Ministers and officials who understand that this must be a people’s war.”