INTEREST IN U.S.A.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1940, Page 5

INTEREST IN U.S.A.

SPECULATION RANGES WIDELY FEUD OVER STRATEGY SUGGESTED. PRESTIGE OF SIR E. IRONSIDE. Ey Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. NEW YORK, January 6. There is wide interest in the United States in Mr Hore-Bel-isha’s retirement. 'The evening papers on Saturday night, and also the Sunday morning papers feature speculation on the reasons and on the British reaction. The “New York Times,” in an editorial, says: “Even those who do not like Mr Hore-Belisha must concede . . that his record is comparable with Lord Haldane’s. Personal disagreements could not have been the whole story. Even since the outbreak of the war, the Air Force has chafed at its subordinate role as little more than an adjunct of the army. This may have led to dissension between Mr Hore-Belisha and Sir Kingsley Wood (Secretary for Air).” The “Times” also speculates in the editorial on whether Mr Hore-Belisha, in favouring decisive action in Scandinavia as the nearest lines for the flanking movements which the military writer. Captain Liddell Hart, has advocated. was over-ruled by the Generals. The “Times” military commentator, Mr Hanson W. Baldwin, stressing Captain Liddell Hart's influence with Mr Hore-Belisha, suggests that a feud with the generals over the strategy in France was the basic cause. The New York “Herald-Tribune’s” military correspondent, Major Eliot, praises the decision to change the British War Minister and declares, “Mr Hore-Belisha had to go for the nation’s good. The Army Councils must rule in war time. The retirement ends Captain Liddell Hart's influence and increases the prestige of General Sir Edmund Ironside (Chief of the British Imperial Staff).” He discusses the possibility of General Ironside following in the footsteps of Lord Kitchener as War Minister and becoming a rallying point in Empire effort.

UNION LEADER’S HOPE NO TINPOT HITLERS WANTED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, January 6. The secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Sir Walter Citrine, speaking at Manchester, expressed the hope that Mr Hore-Belisha’s dismissal had not.meant a strengthening of bureaucracy, whether brass-hat or otherwises. He added that Britons would not allow tinpot Hitlers to rule them from the War Office or elsewhere. NAZIS DELIGHTED ■ALLEGATIONS OF DISSENSION. AMSTERDAM, January 6. German official circles and the Press greet Mr Hore-Belisha’s departure with delight and describe it as showing dissension and lack of confidence within the British Government. Mr Hore-Belisha has always been described in Germany as the chief representative of the “Jewish gang” which allegedly controls the Cabinet, for which reason his resignation is additionally welcome.