WAR TOPICS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 256, 10 January 1941, Page 2

WAR TOPICS

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LOSS OF SHIPS

EXPORTS IN DANGER AUSTRALIAN VIEW British shipping losses through tnemy action have reached a stage where Australia's export trade to Britain is being seriously threatened, states a Sydney message. According to Sir Thomas Cordon, Australian representative of the British Ministry of Shipping, plans have been made to provide greatly increased storage space in Australia for primary produce, to meet the early possibility of strict curtailment of export shipments, owing to lack of tonnage. Sir Thomas Gordon predicted the development of a large export trade with the Middle East, which would provide an outlet for much Australian produce to offset any temporary restriction on exports to Britain. He advocated a vigorous programme of merchant shipbuilding in Australia, subject to Navy requirements being met firs?;. "If the shipyards are not availthen let us build them," he said. "The Australian worker is very adaptable, and I am sure sufficient artisans could be obtained to ensure success of a shipbuilding programme. It was done in the last war, iso why; not in this" From the beginning of the war until recently, Ave have had a good supply of tonnage, but. what the position will be in the present year is very difficult to forecast. The loss of so many ships, including several in our own coastal waters, is bound to have a serious effect on Australia's exports, some of which arc of a perishable charactcr. "Britain may soon have to adopt a policy of sending many of her ships to countries closer to her own shores for supplies, thus avoiding the long journey to and from Australia. We shall then have much of our exportable farm produce on our hands. To meet the possibility of this situation, increased storage will be provided. Available tonnage is being well spread to relieve the situation, cargoes high on the list of priority being the first to be shipped." Australia's shipyards are at present being totally used for the building of and patrol vessels, and the Federal Government so far has been unable to give encouragement to advocates of a programme of merchant shipbuilding. Labour difficulties comprise one of the draw backs to starting new shipyards, unionists claiming that the decay of shipbuilding after the last war caused a departure from the trade of shipwrights.

. At least two Federal Ministers. Mr Hughes (Navy) and Mr Harrison -(Customs), urge that the building of merchant ships should be undertaken now, despite labour difficulties. Mr Hughes, as the then Prime Minister, sponsored shipbuilding in Australia during the last Avar and to-day he is looKing back on wh?t was done 25 years ago without finding convincing arguments against the enterprise. "What was done then," he said 1 , "can be done now. Facilities are now much greater and the steel frames! and plater, can all be obtained in Australia, instead of being imported, as they were during the last war. When this Avar is over, Australia Avill haA r e to play its part in the neAV order in the l&acific, and I hope she Avill play the part of an adult, not an adolescent. The development of such industries as shipbuilding is vilal."

FRENCH GENERALS OYER 150 STILL IN PRISON CAMPS It is reported' from Vichy that more than 150 Frcnch generals- are still in prison camps. In one alone a recent visitor saw more than 90. One general who was released not long ago, after four months as a prisoner, was General* Laure, who was shortly afterwartls appointed by

THE BACKGROUND BRITAIN THE BASTION OIF DEMOCRATIC IDEALS "'Even whilst this book has been in the Press, France has fallen under Nazi control. The Third Republic, which owed so much of its greatness to the spirit of the Dreyfusards, has run its allotted span of three score years Mild ten and has died. Britain alone remains the bastion of the democratic ideal in Europe. Lt seemed, at first, that much of this little essay should be thrown into the past tense. "But so long as this bastion stands, it is well that all discussions of the democratic ideal should remain in the present tense. The spirit of the Drey fusards si ill lives in Europe. When, to hitler experience of Nazi rule, is added the spectacle of Nazi might hurling itself futilely against this stronghold, who can doubt that all who share the spirit of the Dreyfusards will Jigain be roused to strenuous resistance? "Now thai the lights have gone out in Europe, it is more than ever future is always the result not of the immediate past but of the whole of the past. The events, tendencies and arguments outlined in this essay have now a new, and not a diminished, "For the decisive factor in the whole of the past and the present is not the spectacular and. expensive exploits of ramshackle dictatorships, but the permanent desire of ordinary men and women in all partis of the world for security against violence and injustice. That, as we have seen, is the eternal human aspiration on which the democratic ideal is based." —Mr David Thomson, in his essty (in "Current Problems"), entitled "The Democratic Ideal in France and England."

"WE SHALL FIGHT ON" "With a unanimity unparalleled in all our history wee shall light on. We have beaten oil the first attack. No doubt we shall have to face far sterner tests of endurance. But wc shall endure, if need be to the death. For wc do not think our lives would be worth living in a Nazi world. "And it is not only the desperate need of saving everything wc value in our present life that will nerve us to endure. We, too, are looking forward to the fruit of victory. We, too, arc meaning to establish 'a new social order' in our own country—a more real, more just, better educated, more efficient democracy. We, too, desire a new order of Europe/ but we do not seek to impose it ;on her. "We only wish to set her free at last from the menace of Prussianism that has frightened and distracted her for 70 years, and thus make possible a free, unhaunted. discussion of the sort of life she wants to life. "For over a century we used our command of the sea to keep its waters safe and open for the tVai'le of all other nations as well as for her own. (That is what the Nazis call 'British piracy.') And it is 'j-ust those freedoms, political and economic. that we should like to see embodied in the post-war European system. Against a German Europe, walled off from the rest of the Avorld, we see a Eu-ropc of Free Nations, with free access to all lands and their resources." — The "Round Table."

Petain to the post of Secretary-Gen-eral to the Presidency and Cortncii of unoccupied France. General Laure was closely associated with Petain in the Great War. In the present war, up till May, he eomn manded the Ninth Army Gorps in Lorraine. Later lie was made commander of the Eighth Army and in this command! he directed, the. remarkable French defence in the Vosges Mountains, which was continued until all food and supplies were exhausted. Finally General Laure and his whole staff were captuf'^cl.