THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, September 12, 1940. MEN AND METHODS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24401, 12 September 1940, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, September 12, 1940. MEN AND METHODS

e When we read of the suffering and destruction- that are being wrought in London by German airmen, savagely and with malice at the order of a ruler without scruple, we shall do well to remind ourselves of what we are facing and to inquire again how we propose to face it. We shall do well, at the outset, to recall two passages from the eloquent and courageous mid-July broadcast made to the Empire by Mr Churchill. They are these:

Subject to the iron demands of the war we are waging against Hitler and all his forces we shall try so to conduct ourselves that every true French heart will beat and glow at the way we carry on the. struggle, and that not only France but all the oppressed countries in Europe may feel that each British victory is a step towards the liberation of the Continent from the foulest thraldom into which it has ever been cast. . . . Should the invader come to Britain there will be no placid lying down of the people, no submission before him as we have seen, alas! in other countries. We shall defend every village, every town, and every city. The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army, and we would rather see London laid in ashes and ruins than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved. I am bound to state these facts because it is necessary to inform our people of our intentions, and thus reassure them.

“Odr people ” —the people of Great Britain —are reassured. In the face of the horrors, of the past few days there has been, we may believe, no weakening of the strong pulse of their resolve to press on, come what may, to the end of the task confronting them. But it is none the less necessary to set on record, at this early stage of what threatens to be a long and terrible struggle, the differences in methods of warfare practised by the contending forces. In Poland, at Herr Hitler’s order, the people of a great city were subjected to the nameless horrors of unrestricted aerial attack. In Norway, in the Low Countries, in France, the method was the same, and the intention was still to strike at the roots of the human spirit by inflicting unconscionable suffering on the general mass of the peoples marked down for conquest. In Paris on one afternoon more than 1000 high explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped, from altitudes of more than 30,000 feet, wholly without regard for specific targets or for consequences in torn and shattered human bodies. The use of siren bombs was a plain indication that to strike terror was a part of the Nazi purpose—a form of assault designed only to lower citizen morale. Now, as was expected, it has come to be London’s turn, without change in the character of the weapons employed or the barbarous use that is made of them. It has been said more than once by British leaders that we will never wilfully, turn our own weapons against the women and children, the young, the aged and the defenceless, of enemy countries. “We may show mercy,” the Prime Minister has said —“We shall ask none.” Yet it will be strange indeed if there is not a demand for' some descent, limited though it may be, from such peaks of idealism. We are fighting men who are declined to the beast; we are witnessing in our day the fruits of the apotheosis of evil. Are we to limit our chances of survival by the weapons we employ? Are we—to employ Mr Semple’s,illuminating phrase—to take a feather duster against the tiger? The answer is not easily to be found. It may be salutary to fight with tooth and claw in the manner of the Nazis themselves. The means would serve an end, it could be argued, if thereby the war were shortened. But sb fat’, in the air and sea warfare we have made against Germany we have endeavoured “ so to conduct ourselves ” that our hands may be clean of the blood of non-combatants. We have struck hard blows, and will strike harder. But ■we have sought to cripple the enemy’s war machine, not to harass cut of mind or out of life the innocent pawns in a tyrant’s game. The . British Government is plainly absolved, by the character of the campaign which Germany is conducting, from continuance of its policy of confining air attacks to military objectives. But the issue merely becomes more deeply moral when it ceases to be one of physical fact or practice. Up to this moment we have contrived t 6 condition our method of fighting to the “ iron demands ” of the war in which we are engaged and yet preserve our selfrespect. If, along those lines, we are to achieve victory, it can only be at the cost of more intense suffering on our own part. On the credit side we could then at least record a triumph as much spiritual as material.