PREDICTIONS ABOUT WAR

Waikato Times, Volume 132, Issue 22137, 8 September 1943, Page 6

PREDICTIONS ABOUT WAR

HON. W. NASH AT CAMBRIDGE The Hon. W. Nash, Minister of Finance, received a good hearing when he addressed about 500 electors in the Cambridge Town Hall last night. In the course of his address there were many interjections, but most of them were of a bantering nature, and they did not disturb the speaker in his discourse. At the conclusion of the address the Minister was accorded a vote of thanks, combined with an assurance of confidence in the Government. This was not carried until an amendment had been declared lost on a show of hands.

Mr Nash said everybody would like to know when the war would end. In his opinion the Italians would not last long. He based that opinion on the fact that if they had been willing to fight against the Allies they would have seized the best opportunity that could have been offered—during the landing on Italy itself. They had actually offered very little resistance so far. As to Germany, his considered opinion was that Germany would crack under the strain of the heavy aerial pounding and the vigorous onslaughts oi the Russians. He conceded there was no indication just now that his forecast would be approximately correct, but he expected the Germans to be out of the

war next year, probably by May or > June. : As to the trouble in the Pacific, l I the Japanese were being pushed > ! back, farther and farther away from ; j the limits of expansion they had 1 i reached by the collapse of resistance j in Burma, Malaya and the Dutch J East Indies. He expected the . 1 Japanese to remain in the war longer, l for the Japanese were a tenacious and numerous race, and they might not know they had lost the war, con- > tinuing fighting fanatically for a long ! time. 1 Mr Nash commented vigorously on ; what he termed “grossly unfair statements” regarding the cost of the Washington Legation.