BRITAIN’S ANXIETIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 February 1939, Page 5

BRITAIN’S ANXIETIES

LITTLE RELIEF EXPECTED THIS YEAR

SAVE FROM THE GROWTH OF DEFENCES.

OBSERVATIONS BY EARL DE LA WARR. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, January 30. Earl de la Warr, President of the Board of Education, speaking in Derby today, said that, except for the growing strength of our defences, there could be few reasons for expecting any relief from our anxieties in the coming year.

The Government was driving ahead with its rearmament programme. In regard to the evacuation side of the defence measures, he hoped that the first steps of the scheme concerned with billeting would be completed within a month.

But the question of billeting was not without difficulties, and it was doubtful, even from a preliminary survey, whether it would be entirely adequate. Camps were, therefore, under active construction in order to supplement efforts in that direction.

The state of the country’s armed forces must remain the prevailing question, but arms alone were not enough. Britain’s strength was her moral strength. Without it she could never believe in herself nor make others believe in her. A realism that failed to recognise this fundamental fact was based on sheer delusion. “We have deliberately chosen a voluntary basis for mobilising our resources,” said Earl de la Warr. “It is all the more necessary, therefore, that all of us should realise that we are preparing to defend not only our possessions, or even our security, but freedom and the rule of.law between nations. Our cause is right. If we are forced into a war we will fight it as a crusade.”