CHURCHILL’S CONFIDENCE

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 29241, 11 October 1940, Page 4

CHURCHILL’S CONFIDENCE

When Mr Winston Churchill makes his periodical reviews of the war the people of the British Empire and their friends anxiously scan every word to read from the mind in the best position to know how their country is faring in its great struggle for freedom. They hope for cheerful optimism, but they are ready to accept a further call to sacrifice if necessary. In one respect the Prime Minister has never disappointed them—he has never for a moment abandoned the sturdy confidence in the eventual outcome of the war. That is the keynote of his latest review, though he warns the Empire that “ long, dark months of trial and tribulation still lie before it.” But he is confident again in the ability of the' people to emerge triumphantly from that trial. Mr Churchill’s summing up of the progress of the war contains no more comfort for the enemy than did that memorable declaration early in the war : “We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender—and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island, or a large part of it, were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.” Since that day much that he foretold has come true. “We have fought with growing confidence and growing strength in the air ” particularly, and so effective has that campaign been that it has probably altered the whole course of the war as far as Hitler’s plans are concerned. Mr Churchill does not believe that the winter will bring complete relief from terroristic aerial bombing, or that the danger of an attempted invasion is past, but he does agree that if the invasion comes in the future it will have less chance of success than it would have had in the months that have gone. Of the spirit of the British people towards him he says : “ One would have thought that I had brought them some great benefit instead of blood, tears and sweat. On every side they say, ‘We can take it!’” That is characteristic and admirable.