THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 291, 7 September 1942, Page 4

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments—Reflections Intercession.

Almighty God, we remember before Thee all those dear to us who are serving in the armed forces o£ our nation. Give them the courage that springs from faith and confidence in the righteousness of their cause, and may they ever be good soldiers in Jesus Christ.— Amen.

Experience, that excellent, master, has taught me many things.---Pliny the Younger.

“The supplies* which the United States and the United- Nations have must.see them through this war. The rubber, tin, copper, iron and steel, sugar, gasoline, oil, coal, wool, leather, paper, aluminium, and so forth must be husbanded so that there is no possibility of. their running out. The supplies on hand Pimply have to last long enough to win. These are the fundamentals behind all the details of rationing and allocation, however well or fumbling!.'’ they may be handled, in the United States. The American who ungruiinbllngly rides the street car to work instead of driving his automobile, eaves his newspapers for the Boy Scouts, digs up an extra toothpaste tube with the one lie turns in to buy shaving cream, puts in coal to save transportation next winter, saves a spoonful of sugar inside his quota, and makes an extra search to find the nozzle for the garden hose instead of hustling to buy a new one—he is helping to hold tlie beleaguered fortress that is America. This rock must stand.”—Editorial in the “Christian Science Monitor.”

“Tlie German occupation officials are applying themselves with the usual German 'thoroughness to the task of transferring to Germany every kind of movable property which seems likely to be useful to them. These ‘war gains’ In which Hitler is allowing the German people to share in a way that was never done before, will create among them the belief that the present war—whatever its end may be —is a profitable undertaking, and that to ‘act as the ruling race’ and live on plunder and the labour of oppressed peoples offers a comfortable and carefree way of living. Compared with all this, Germany’s reparations and economic losses as a result of the Versailles Treaty fade into insignificance. Will Germany ever be in a position to restore even a reasonable percentage of the loot, the contributions and the plunder extorted from the occupied countries? It is -quite probable that Germany will raise the -bogey of a transfer problem, but this would be completely invalid, for no such problem arose after 1032, when Germany sent thousands of millions abroad to pay for the raw materials she needed for rearmament. Germany must be made to account for the many goods and the vast wealth which she has extracted from the conquered countries, and which she lias transferred to Germany with no apparent difficulty but that of providing for their transport.”—Mr. G. Borsky, in “The Greatest Swindle in the World.”

“A little book by a lieutenant-colonel in the U.S.A. Army—‘Defence Will Not Win the War’- (W. F. Kernan), has been very widely read and discussed in America, and has played its part in gradually turning American public opinion in favour of an offensive against Germany. The author," says a "Spectator” reviewer, “argues bls case vigorously, and though by now many of his points are familiar in this country, their striking formulation in a popular —at times too popular—form' will be found stimulating by the British reader. Lieutenant-Colonel Kernan’s main contention is that Mahan’s theory of the supremacy of seapower has no absolute validity. In his view, it mere-, ly reflects the state of affairs which has been in existence from the downfall of Napoleon till the rise of Hitler. In the 125 years of this period no really ‘total’ war was fought; that is no war involving the risk of absolute annihilation of the vanquished by the victor. But whenever a conflict breaks out in which one side is out for conquest on a continental scale, and for the utter subjection of the conquered, as in tbe case of the Persians of antiquity, of the Saraceis, of -Spain, etc., and now of Hitler’s Germany, the defensive strategy of seapower and of the Chinese Wall stands no chance and means at best only doomed deferred. Nothing will save the intended victims but a coun-ter-onslaught on tile same scale, and total defeat of the aggressor on land. This view leads the author to some practical conclusions about the present war, some of which will be more readily accepted than others. Not everybody will agree with his opinion that France would have defeated Hitler’s armies by an all-out offensive In 1939. She might conceivably have done so if in the place of a Gamelin she had been led by a Turenne or a Napoleon. It is true, of course, that theories of defensive warfare flourish most in times of mediocre generalship. The modern idea of staff-conducted wars, all carefully planned in advance on a safety-first principle, against which LieutenantColonel Kernan is at his most caustic, is no doubt a by-product of the scientific era. Great captains have at all times inclined to lay more stress on the art than on the science of war. Yet surely there is some begging of the question here. To win in the field against strong material superiority demands a soldier of genius, and genius is more difficult to produce at will than armies and engines of war designed to restore equality.”

America’s Prayer.

0 Father-God, in truth ’tls not for

wealth Of nations that we plead, nor yet the

power To rule on land-and sea. ’Tis not for

fame That’s won by sacrifice; and not

alone For victory; but strength to stay the

hand That slays the helpless innocent, and

crush The thing that would still the voice

of liberty; To rise from wrack of war with stainless flag And honoured name—with faith and hope on which To build for future good; and then to

know With all humanity, the joy of peace — Enduring peace throughout the world. —L. Blunden Wills in "New York Times.”