NEUTRAL OPINION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 133, 6 May 1940, Page 7

NEUTRAL OPINION.

- SYMPATHETIC COMMENT. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 4. Keen interest is shown by the Press in the reaction of neutral countries to the Allied decision to withdraw from the Trondheim and Namsos areas and transfer their troops elsewhere. The Daily Telegraph says: “It is a notable fact that the opportunity for criticism has been forgone more widely than it has been abused, which suggests that sympathy and respect for this country are more deeply and widely diffused throughout the world than its enemies would like to allow. “Of all 'the neutrals, the one to whose judgment this country will turn most attentively is the United States and in this hour of adversity it is specially gratifying to note how friendly that judgment has been. It is with sincere satisfaction also that the Allies will note the friendly tone of the comments in the Spanish newspapers', which hitherto have not been too favourable to the Allies’ cause. Thus the official organ in Spain commends Mr Chamberlain’s candour in telling the truth to ‘his great people at a time when news is hidden under the most absurd propaganda.’ ” The Times, commenting on the report of one Swedish paper which advises all small neutrals “to depend entirely on yourselves alone if you are in danger,” says: ‘lt is because they almost all choose to depend upon themselves alone till it is too late that it is so difficult for the Allies to render the aid which they will more than willingly give and which, with mutual preparation and understanding, could be made doubly effective.” SWEDEN CRITICISED. Stressing the different outcome of the first phase of the Norwegian war which would have resulted had Sweden been the aily of Norway and her airfields therefore available for the Allies, The Times says: “Action in the air would have been more than .redressed and the British and French fighters'could have cleared the skies of Nazi bombers. They are entirely ready to extend their help to all countries which -take up arms against Germany, but the position in the Norwegian campaign is that ground troops have l.ttle chance of success against an army whose air arm has. obtained supremacy. Britain, therefore, is obviously better placed to turn the scales when it is possible for her to employ her air power as well as her sea power. The News-Chronicle also criticises the attitude of the Swedish Press. “If Sweden had contributed half as much to the Norwegian cause as the Allies—if she had only put.an airfield at oui disposal—the result might have been different,” says the paper. “The fact is that Norway, like Sweden, put her sole faith in neutrality, and that was the basic cause of the calamity which has overcome heir.”