AIDING RUSSIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 230, 30 September 1941, Page 5

AIDING RUSSIA

WHAT CAN BRITAIN DO? PRESS SPECULATION AND REVISION (Recd. 5.5 p.m.) Rugby, ( Sept. 28. The chief subject for discussion and comment in the Sunday press, as it has been recently in daily newspapers, is the question of British help tor Britain’s Russian ally. A distinguished writer in the Sunday Times defines the extent and categories of such aid. "What we can do we are doing to preven’ Russia from being conquered —to enable her to hold out and turn defeat into ultimate victory.” "Besides blockading her enemies by sea and bombing them from the air, and apart from some R.A.F. co-opera-tion on Russian soil, this involves three main things. First, keeping the sea open so that supplies of equipment and other necessities may reach her; secondly, ourselves manufacturing (other pa> of what she needs; thirdly, guarding or opening up military action, or engineering, or both, avenues along which supplies may reach her "The first means that the gigantic task of our navy is shared in now by our Air Force. The second means that, whereas we have strained every nerve to make aircraft and tanks for our own forces, we now have to make them in vast numbers for Russia as well, a tax on our strength which we cannot dream of refusing, but which, nevertheless, inevitably must strain us to the limit. ‘ The third may be illustrated by what we have done and shall do in Iran and Iraq—military steps which we have taken and are engineering and steps which we are going to take —to open up an avenue of supply to Russia from the Persian Gulf. "Over and above these direct aids to Russia come our direct blows against Russia's enemy. These take two main forms —blockade by sea and a bombing offensive by air. The blockade is of course, complemented by Russia"s land blockade on the east.”

Meanwhile the British and United States missions have arrived in Moscow with plans for increasing assistance in every form lo the Soviet Union.—B.O.W.