AIM OF ALLIES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20053, 27 September 1939, Page 5

AIM OF ALLIES

END NAZI MENACE NEVER SO UNITED CHAMBERLAIN’S SPEECH WAR SITUATION REVIEWED BLOCKADE DEFENDED ATTITUDE TO NEUTRALS (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (British Official Wireless.) Heed. 11 a.m. RUGBY. Sept. 2(5. In a statement in the House or Commons on the present position of the war, the Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, said: “My first task to-day is to give a report to the House of the second meeting of the Supreme War Council on Friday—this lime in England. It was a great pleasure to be .able to welcome the French Premier, M. Daladier, and his colleagues to our shores.

“The council met in the morning and again in the afternoon. I am glad to be able to inform the House that we found ourselves in complete agreement with the French representatives on the course to be followed to meet the developments and to give effect to the allied plans. An agreement was also reached on the procedure for co-ordinating and perfecting the arrangements to be made by the two Governments on the question of munitions and supplies. Action by Soviet

“Since my last statement on September 20, the effects of the action of the Soviet Government on the position in Poland have become clearer. The Soviet forces have everywhere rapidly advanced and on September 23 a German-Soviet communique was published in Moscow, according to which, the German and Soviet Governments had established a demarcation line between the German and Soviet armies running roughly from north to south from East Prussia through Warsaw to the junction of the Hungarian-Slovak frontier. It will be noticed that tins line brings the Soviet forces up to the suburbs of Warsaw, leaving the greater part of Galicia and of the Polish oil wells in Soviet control.

“Communiques issued by the Red Army do not, however, suggest that the Soviet troops have as yet occupied all the territory allotted to them under this arrangement, which amounts to more than half the total area of the Polish republic.” Cowardly Assassination

After reference to the cowardly assassination of the Rumanian Prime Minister, M. Calinescu, and brief references to the progress in the air and on the Western Front, where “the French have continued to make progress in certain localities and have succeeded, notwithstanding increasingly energetic German reaction, in maintaining all the gains intact,” and to the Dominions, whose war .preparations, he said, continued with gathering momentum, Mr Chamberlain turned to the work of the Ministry of Economic Warfare, to which he devoted a large part of his statement. . Whereas in the last war the Ministry of Blockade was not set up until 1916, the new Ministry had been under organisation for the past two years. The object was to disorganise Germany’s economic structure and cripple her power to prolong hostilities. Mr. Chamberlain continued: “A word of warning against over-optim-ism is necessary. Germany already possesses stocks of varying size of raw materials which she requires to import and quick results cannot, therefore, be expected. But our command of the sea means that from the day the war broke out Germany was cut off from many of her sources of supply. Seized 256,000 Tons of Goods

“Figures for the first three weeks of the war show that we have seized about 256,000 tons of goods as to which there was evidence that they were contraband consigned to Germany. These include 'some 62,000 tons of petroleum products, 65,000 tons of iron ore, and 37,000 tons of manganese ore. German propaganda, meanwhile, has been active in alleging that our contraband control will have no effect on Germany as she is self-sufficient, but that it will, on the other hand, completely strangle neutral trade.

"I do not know which of these statements is further from the truth. The fact is that we made plain at the beginning of the war that we were anxious to take account of the bona fide trading needs of neutral countries and that the British Government would gladly consider any suggestions neutral Governments might put forward tfor this purpose.

“Friendly discussions are now taking place with a number of Governments, and Britain hopes in certain cases to come to arrangements with them which will still further simplify the procedure of donitwabancl control. The facts speak for themselves, and neutral opinion will, I am sure, make its own comparison between Britain’s clearly declared policy on the one hand and, on the other, the thinly-veiled menaces of Germany towards neutrals, menaces which in the past few days have been translated into action by the sinking of three neutral ships under circumstances constituting a clear breach of international law. German Propaganda “.Much play is made in German propaganda of the inclusion of foodstuffs in the category of conditional contraband, and it is represented that we are thereby conducting an illegal and unhumane blockade. But in this respect, a naval blockade is in no way different from a land siege, and no one has ever suggested that a besieging commander should allow free rations for a besieged town. “In any case the German Government should be the last to make

such an accusation at a time when German submarines are attacking all shipping coming to these islands with complete and callous disregard of humanity and the rules of submarine warfare to which Germany solemnly agreed.”

The Prime Minister spoke at length of the industrial organisation of the nation for war and tne part employers and labour, as partners with the Ministry of Supply, could play.

He concluded: “Never have our people been more united or more determined. They are resolved —and the simple fact cannot too often be stressed—to rid themselves once and for all of the perpetual .threat of German aggression o.f which Poland is the latest instance. We and France entered the war to rid ourselves and the world of that menace, and our peoples are united as never before in the resolve to achieve that purpose.”