LESSONS OF WAR.

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

LESSONS OF WAR.

SIR JOHN SIMON’S SUMMARY. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. May 3. In his speech to-night at the meeting of the Liberal National Party, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Simon) referring to the withdrawal from Southern Norway emphasised the full collective responsibility of Cabinet, saying that if anybody was disposed to criticise this Minister or that, or draw distinctons, he would be woefully disappointed. When the debate took place it would be seen that the joint responsibility of Cabinet was, in fact, based on complete agreement. Turning to the wider aspect of the last eight months, Sir John said that we could draw three conclusions. The first was the enormous power of the instrument of war which Germany had been engaged in building up and perfecting in recent years, and the remorseless skill with which it was used to trample down Germany’s neutral neighbours and to spread the area of German occupation. He reminded his audience that the Gorman army liad not yet tried its strength on level terms with the land forces of a great Power, and the German navy had been crippled. Nevertheless, the first conclusion to be drawn, was that we had to beat and overthrow an opponent of enormous strength. The second lesson was the unparalleled unity and determination with which the British people and tlie British Commonwealth were meeting this challenge. That unity was not the result of an enforced and machinemade thing used for dragooning public opinion by the methods of Goebbels and the Gestapo. It was the spontaneous response of democracy which valued liberty above everything else. The British people loathed war, and no power on earth could sweep them into it save the compulsion of their own deliberate judgment, that it must, at all costs, be undertaken. This was a solid uprising of free people against the wicked ambitions of a handful of men. The third lesson was the true character of the issues for which we were fighting. Trade unionists knew that the victory of Hitlerism meant the end of the rights of the workman.