NOTES AND COMMENTS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 23, 22 October 1942, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Fire-watchers have been given clear warning that they will be expected to maintain their service not only on Labour Day but also during the Christmas holidays. It would be still more widely helpful if some advance direction in the matter of holiday duty were given to civil defence personnel as a whole. What is to be the position, this summer, of wardens responsible for the proper screening of lights, and also of members of emergency groups which would be required for instant actionffin the event of an attack by the enemy? Last year, in the absence of definite ruling or provision, many groups were inactive over the holiday period. Some actually went into recess. Whatever arrangement may be considered safe and suitable, it should be a uniform one. There would be reasonable ground for complaint on the part of fire-watchers were the position in the coming holiday period to be that they alone, of all civil defence units, were on hand in normal strength.

One of the most encouraging of recent comments on the Pacific war situation has come this week from the camp of the enemy. The Japanese Foreign Office spokesman, broadcasting from Tokio, has warned the nation that the Pacific conflict is gradually assuming the aspect of a long-term war, requiring all the strength of the Japanese people. This is a note in Nipponese domestic propaganda, which has not been heard since that period (some three years ago) when the nation became markedly restive over the manner in which the so-called China Incident had developed. At that time the concept of a brief, decisive military campaign in China was replaced with the theory of gradual conquest, during which the public would be required to accept straitened economic circumstances. The world now knows, of course, that the Japanese people wore put on short commons because their leaders were preparing for a war of far greater magnitude—short, and decisive—to avoid a dangerous, continuing drain on the nation’s resources. But, this plan was doomed io failure by the battles of the Coral Sen and Midway.

It would be interesting to know the economic value of the.forced labour that Germany is now using to such a large extent. The Germans are said to have stipulated that the 150,000 Frenchmen required for war work in the Reich must be trained men, and the demands already enforced have apparently been in factories connected with the heavy industries, indicating that mechanics and engineers are the classes most urgently required. But, although probably the economic factor does not trouble the Nazis in anyway, there must be some minimum of effort and output. It seems hardly likely that men forcibly taken from their homes and compelled to work for their conquerors would bo. at all willing or likely to do more than the minimum. Probably it will take several French workers to equal the output of one enthusiastic Nazi employee, and it may not bo as good even theu. Unwilling labour can constitute a distinct risk in any enterprise.