A TRIBUTE TO MR CHURCHILL

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2928, 14 November 1916, Page 7

A TRIBUTE TO MR CHURCHILL

AUTHOR OF THE "TANKS" Australian-New Zealand Cable Association. London, November 12. Lord Rothermere, in an article in tie "Sunday Pictorial," warmly defending Mr. Winston Churchill from recent attaoks, remarks: "The majority of the unsparing criticisms against him centre round the Dardanelles. As this matter is the subject of a Commission of Inquiry, the public must wait for the Commission's report, and when it is vailable form its own conclusions.Early in 1913 Mr. Churchill warned the Admiralty of the future role of the Zeppelins;, and urged the construction of similar aircraft for scouts. If his views were not parried into full effect, responsibility, no doubt, rests in a degree with Mr. Churchill, but also, perhaps, in greater degree on the naval experts, who were divided or lukewarm in their opinions, and with the Ministers, who were ignorant or sceptioal of the importance of aerial warfare. Mr. Churchill, opposed with the difficulty of obtaining money, and convinced that tho Hornet aeroplane would establish superiority on land and sea, determined to concentrate his stinted resources mainly thereon.

"Mr. Churchill, in a written communi j cation, early in 1915, outlined the entire conception of the tanks to.tho Government, and at .the.end of March tho Government ordered the construction of a. considerable number, identical -'with those used on the Somme. It is difficult to exaggerate what was accomplished under his energetic regime in the early days of the war. It is to Mr. Churchill's credit that the outbreak of war, after a century of -peace, found every ship, great and small, ready and at their war stations, That was a wonderful achievement of preparedness, alone sufficient to secure Mr. Churchill and all others concerned grateful recognition in the records'and tho minds of his countrymen."