LONDON'S DEFIANCE

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1940, Page 7

LONDON'S DEFIANCE

British Official Wireless.

bulwafik of liberty

Rec. 6.30 p.m. Rugby, Sept. 21. A spirited repudiation of the suggestion that Britain is a beleaguered fora^ss was made in a broadcast address to Ame-«, rica by the Lord Mayor or London, spoken in his absence owing to a slight cold by a former ex-Lord Mayor, Sir William Broadbridge. . "Just look for a moment at this England of ours;" it is' a home of men and women resolutely preparing themselves for the supreme task in British history," he said. "Night by night out from this island flies the spearhead of our attack on Nazi Germany. That spearhead is the Royal Air Force whose heroic exploits are known to all the world, but even these brave men of the air could not give us command of the seas if the British fleet did not hold the ocean round our shores against all comers. Who except Goebbels could suggest that Britain is besieged to-day when our ships bring us daily and in safety the food we eat and the steel, copper, oil and cotton we need for our effort in this war. We are daily revictualled and replenished from the granarles and arsenals of the world and week by week our export trade is carried out over the seven seas. "This is no idle boast — it is the plain, honest truth— but do not imagine we can keep our seaports open to receive the rich cargoes of the outer world without paying a price and a very heavy price. Patrols of the Royal Navy are guarding not only the shores of Britain but the security of the whole world. We stand to-day facing the greatest crisis in our history looking to victory sure and complete with banner bearing our ancient motto 'Domine Dirige Nos.' "London has known in the past moments when all she most valued, liberty and life itself, were at stake, but never in her long annals has she been oalled upon to face an ordeal so cruei and so searching. Her long and established traditions of safe and settled ways have been assaulted as never before. Her peaceful citizens have been subjected to the ruthless cruelty of an embittered foe bent on her destruction. "To-day London stands as the very bulwark of civilisation and freedom as we know it. It is the greatest responsibilit.y the world has ever known. This red earth of our countryside. these paved streets of my city built on Roman foun- , dations shall be defended to the last. j London has sometimes in its history | been attacked but it has never been sacked."