CRITICS OUTSPOKEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 May 1940, Page 5

CRITICS OUTSPOKEN

IN HOUSE OF COMMONS DEBATE Mr Chamberlain Accepts Labour Challenge BLISTERING ATTACK BY MR LLOYD GEORGE DISCUSSION IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS In its second day, the debate in the House of Commons is being- continued with much liveliness and frankness, states a Daventry broadcast. The Labour Party has decided to press the matter to a vote. Sir Samuel Hoare said the R.A.F. had been under a handicap from the very outset because the Germans had captured all the strategic aerodromes in centrad and southern Norway. There was no delay in starting our operations to win a foothold for our fighting planes in Norway. Attacks on Germanoccupied aerodromes had been kept up with very marked results and they had inflicted on the German Air Force three times the loss that it had inflicted on us in Scandinavia. Sir Samuel Hoare went on to refer to the establishment of -an air base on a frozen lake, which the Germans had bombed continuously for 15 hours. Thirty German machines were put out of action. There were no anti-aircraft guns on the lake, because the arrangements were upset by the sinking of ships. The production of aircraft last month, he said, was much larger than ever before. Mr Lloyd George made a blistering attack on the Government. He said the expedition was half-prepared and halfbaked. The object of the Trondheim expedition was to capture an air base and to carry that out they should have had picked men for the vzhole of this vital expedition. It was no use claiming that the balance of the action was in our favour. Hitler had put his country in an infinitely better position to wage war than was the case in 1914, while we were in a worse position than ever before. The situation was grave, but there was no cause for panic. Our promissory notes were now rubbish in the hands of neutrals. He asked them to tell him one neutral country that would be prepared to stand up against Nazi aggression on promises from Britain.