The Dominion. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1942. A TASK FOR DETERMINED PEOPLES

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 288, 3 September 1942, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1942. A TASK FOR DETERMINED PEOPLES

Those who may be inclined to look upon recent events in the Pacific as being indicative of the early defeat of. Japan will be well advised to consider the warnings of United Nations leaders against complacency and over-confidence. In the last three days sobering statements have been uttered in the United States and Australia. Speaking in Ohio, Admiral King, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Fleets, said that “the war will be long and tough and will bring many heartaches and disappointments.” Successes such as, that achieved in the Solomons were only a beginning —“only a hint,” as he put it. ' ■ Enlarging the same theme in a broadcast from Washington the former United States Ambassador to Japan (Mr. Joseph Grew) gave blunt'reasons why we should reject the theory that the Japanese, aie discouraged or disheartened by the recent turn of events. They are, he pointed out, a people whose morale cannot easily be broken. The only way to crush the aggressive spirit is by:

Complete physical defeat and physical expulsion from the areas which they have temporarily conquered, and also by progressive attrition of their naval power and merchant marine, resulting in the cutting off of their homeland from all the outlying area's.

’ Presented in this concise manner, the war objective in the Pacific will be recognized as something which cannot be attained easily or speedily. , Successes on the outer fringe of Japan’s war zone are a good beginning —but only that. Actually it is not yet possible to say with assurance that the tide of invasion has reached its limits and been turned. The Australian Army Minister (Mr. Forde) reminded the public of this on Monday when he forcefully reproved those who seem “too sanguine of success” and warned them that there might yet be fighting on Australian soil. Japan, he said, had resources of . manpower equal to Germany’s. She also had under her control in the conquered territories labour resources vastly exceeding those of Germany.. She could throw into action an army as large and almost as well equipped as the German army, provided that she could control her lines of communication. . . It is invigoratmgly true, of course, that in contrast with Air. Forde’s picture may be set another—a canvas on which the democratic peoples of the Pacific may be seen steadily turning the great machinery of their industrial and economic prosperity to the increasing purposes of war. Pitted against the eastern imitators of western progress are the world’s best scientific and engineering brains, and. the acknowledged leaders of industrial development and mechanical method. Yet Mr. Forde’s facts remain. The military defeat of‘Japan in the Pacific is a long, hard job for the best war machine we are capable of producing. Moreover, it is a task for determined peoples prepared to go on unfalteringly' and aggressively, prepared to overcome unexpected reverses, and accepting in spartan spirit the cost entailed in, lives and material sacrifice. In planning their Pacific war the Japanese, according to Mr. Grew, relied upon the white man’s flabbiness. “They regard us as constitutional weaklings, unwilling to make sacrifices for victory.’ It was on this belief that Hitler banked in the cases of both Great Britain and Russia. Today Britain has transformed herself from an island of peaceful, casual-living people into a humming citadel., Russia’s millions, though grimly tried, stand cohesive, and magnificently resilient. No flabbiness, no unwillingness to face sacrifice is revealed on either flank of Germany. . Japan must be. proved to have made the same disastrous mistake in calculating her task in the Pacific. The proof must be forthcoming from the peoples ranged against her—not only the fighting forces, but the workers and dwellers on the home fronts, in the United States, Australia and this country.