UNSHAKEN IN ALLIED CAUSE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20061, 6 October 1939, Page 7

UNSHAKEN IN ALLIED CAUSE

SUCCESSFUL WAGING OF WAR REACTION IN BERLIN AND MOSCOW CENSORED REPORTS OF BRITISH VIEWS NATURE OF STRUGGLE CONCEALED (Elce. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 11.30 a.m. RUGBY, October 5 Opposition party loaders in the House of Lords during a debate on the international situation were emphatic in their endorsement oi f the assurance given the previous night by the Foreign Secretary, Viscount Halifax, that if peace offers were made it would not be possible to forget the character of the people with whom we had to deal. Lord Snell said we had no reason to believe that Nazi Germany had in the least degree changed its mind. After one month of war, an important solid fact 'was that .the substantial unity of the British nation was unshaken. All stood behind the Government to secure a successful waging of the war. A message from Berlin states that the Nazi comment, on the speech of Lord Halifax is that it contained nothing new. A statement made over the German radio was that Lord Halifax “deliberately avoided any concrete intimation in respect to planning the future.” A Paris message says the Ffeiich press describes the German peace moves as an attempt to separate Britain and France. Curtailed Soviet Broadcast. The Moscow correspondent of the New York Times, Mr. G. E. R. Gedye, states that extracts from the speech of . the British Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, in the House of Commons, including his reference to the possibility of the Soviet trying to secure peace, were broadcast last night. ; Mr. Chamberlain’s statement that Britain would not consider peace terms until she had completed the task before her was quoted, but listeners were not allowed to know that Mr. Chamberlain characterised the task of the Allies as liberating Europe from the continually recurring fear of German aggression. The Russian people were not allowed to hear a single word of the speech of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Winston Churchill.

What the newspapers Pravda or Izvostia do not publish or the Moscow radio broadcast does not issue remains a sealed book for the Soviet’s 160,000,000 people. Consequently, they are completely befogged as to the nature of the struggle. Ninety-nine per cent are genuinely convinced that, the British and French have not the least intention of seriously fighting. Dismissing the situation with an average citizen in Russia, is as useful as attempting to do so with a Martian.