HIGH STAKES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 189, 13 August 1940, Page 5

HIGH STAKES

HITLER'S PROBLEM FATE SEALED IF HE DOES NOT ATTACK MAY SEND TROOPS TO AFRICA [ British Official Wirelefts. ] RUGBY. Aug. IT. Speaking in Blackpool to-day, the. Secretary for India, Mr. L. S. Amery, said: "The close of the first year of the war finds Britain left to face the coming storm alone. We are prepared for whatever form the attack may take, for whatever new devilry the enemy may have prepared. The trial of our endurance will be stern. ‘‘One thing I do know: If Hitler thinks our spirit can be broken by a mass attack from the air upon our industries and shipping he will find himself grievously mistaken.” “He has to achieve far more than that to win the war. He has to come over and take us to break us as he has taken and broken others. Let him try. If he does he will fail disastrously, and his failure will bring the end nearer than anything else could possibly do. But if the stakes are too high for him and he gives up the attempt, that, too, will be a failure. All the world will know the tide has turned and that sooner or later his fate is sealed.

Limbs of the Empire ‘•He may hope as a second best plan if he cannot destroy the British Empire here at its heart, to lop off some of its limbs. He may send his bombers and air-borne troops to stiffen the half-hearted Italian allies in the attack on Egypt and our whole position in the Middle East and Africa. If he does his men will meet not only a warm climate but a warm reception. In any case, nothing he can do in that quarter can protect the health of Germany from our growing strength in the air. “Thanks to the superior skill and daring of our airmen—thanks also to the superiority of the men who designed and made their machines—we have already, with greatly inferior numbers, inflicted far more damage upon the enemy than we have suffered. More and more, week by week as our resources in the air multiply, we shall seek the enemy out in his own home and destroy one by one the factories upon which his war power is based and the transport by means of which his armies and the life of his people are sustained. Look to Britain “Meanwhile no Continental conquests of his can shake off the stranglehold of our blockade. He may extend his empire for the time being, but more and more her conquered and oppressed peoples will look to us to deliver them alike from their political enslavement and from their material need. "Then, masters of the sea and air, with our armies equipped and trained for the tasli no longer of defence, but of deliverance, we shall—by what approach and with what allies no one can yet say—seek out the dragon in his lair and put an end to his evil horror which to-day obsesses the world.”

He proceeded to justify this description of Hitlerism. “Behind this terrible German engine of destruction. behind these armoured divisions of millions of infantry, these air equadrons and lurking submarines whose efficiency we cannot but admit, there lies a purpose as cruel and brutal as it is senseless—the mere lust for power as a means for yet further aggression. The Nazi creed which inspires that purpose exalts cruelty and brutality and despises mercy, tolerance, fair dealing, and justice. It denies all rights to the individual as against a handful of gangsters who claim to represent the omnipotent State. Mr. Amery concluded by emphasising that the British people's desire for the spread of freedom was not confined to the Commonwealth, and he declared: “We wish to see the peoples of Europe united together after this war in a free co-operation for their mutual security and welfare. It is because that is our faith and the mainspring of our actions that all who love freedom in Europe will continue to look to us to break asunder the bars of the prison in which they are confined and to bring lhem succour and relief, of which thev stand so sorely in need.”