Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, MAY 27, 1940. AT A FATEFUL HOUR.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 May 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, MAY 27, 1940. AT A FATEFUL HOUR.

TN its-confident appeal to the spirit that animates British democracy, the Empire Day message from his Majesty the King, which was published on Saturday, derives added weight and significance from the fact that the Mother Country and therefore the British nation in all its lands today are menaced as they seldom if ever have been before. The fate of every Dominion and Colony of the Empire, as well as that of the United Kingdom, will be determined on the European battlefield and it would be merely foolish not to recognise that the immediate outlook in that area of unprecedented conflict is gravely critical.

It is only about seven weeks since the Chief of.the Imperial General Staff (General Sir Edmund Ironside) said of the outlook on the Western Front: “Frankly we would welcome an attack; we are sure of ourselves and have no fears.” There .is no reason to suppose that this statement was at all rash or overconfident as it related to the British Expeditionary Force, but as events, have since demonstrated it implied a measure of confidence in a section of the French Army holding part of the front—the line of the Meuse—that was in no way warranted.

Every effort presumably has been and is being made to remedy the effects of the failure which enabled the Germans to open and break through a wide breach in the Allied front. Meantime, however, the British and other Allied forces in the coastal area are left in an extremely dangerous situation, exposed to the attack of very much more numerous enemy forces.

Following upon the replacement of General Gamelin by General Wevgand in the supreme command, it is now reported that fifteen*French officers of high rank—army, army corps and divisional commanders and others —have been relieved of their commands. No doubt there will yet be a reckoning, in other ways with those responsible for the collapse on the line of the Meuse which has done so much for the time being to impair the outlook in the war area of Belgium and Northern France, but it is less on this matter than on possibilities of retrieving and re-establishing the position that thoughts naturally are concentrated at the moment.

It is now clear that the enemy is employing in his drive to the coast an enormous weight of mechanised and other forces. One of Saturday’s messages stated that: —

The next phase, according to the Wilhelmstrasse will be a violent onslaught on the United Kingdom itself. The immediate next phase for the British and Allied forces hemmed in in the arc between Calais and Zeebrugge is to cut a way through the German salient southward or to withdraw to the coast and transfer the troops by sea to France for a major offensive from the south.

The dangers of the situation are defined only too plainly. At least, it must be hoped, however, that there is no question of the grim death-grapple in the coastal zone being carried to a conclusion without a full-powered effort by the French Army to break the German onset. The immediate question is -whether it is possible for the British Expeditionary Force and the Allied forces fighting in its company to maintain their magnificent stand against desperate odds until General Weygand is able to organise action on the scale the emergency demands. A bitter price meantime is being paid for the mistakes of years in which an unscrupulous enemy was allowed to build up military strength while Britain and her Allies were concentrating their hopes and efforts largely on the maintenance of peace. ' Apart from the perilous position of the Allied forces in the coastal zone, there is every indication that Britain and her sea communications are about to be subjected to massed air attacks.

It was against this background that the King delivered his Empire Day message and declared that the decisive struggle is now upon us, a.struggle in which: —

Defeat will not mean some brief eclipse from which we shall emerge with strength renewed—it will mean the destruction of our world as we know it and the descent of darkness upon its ruins.

The whole Empire assuredly will rally and respond to his Majesty’s declaration of full confidence in ultimate Allied victory provided confidence is armed “with courage and resolution, with endurance and self-sacrifice.’’ Whatever the outcome of the terrible conflict now raging in Northern France and Belgium, only one course is open to the people of the British' Empire. As a nation, with our Allies, we are engaged in a struggle of life and death. Decisive final victory is the only alternative to the submergence in a tide, of bestiality and barbarism of our free national life and all that we hold dear.

For us in New Zealand there is nothing else to do than put our total resources as a people into the scale for the victory of the Allied cause. Religious belief, faith in democratic principles and simple common sense must alike impel us to use all our energies and all that we possess in support of the most resolute and complete war effort of which we are capable.

UNITING THE DOMINION.

rpHE policy declared by the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) in his broadcast address last evening was one under which the whole of the people of this country will be called upon and required to put every atom of effort into the prosecution of the war. If it puts that policy unfalteringly into practical shape, the Government need trouble itself little about partisan criticism of the kind to which Mr Fraser devoted some time and attention last evening. An overwhelming proportion of the people of this country undoubtedly are determined to subordinate all other considerations to that of organising the most powerful war effort of which we are capable.

What is essential is that the people of the Dominion should be satisfied that no opportunity is being lost of harnessing the national energies and resources in support of Britain and her Allies with whose fate our own so clearly is identified. In regard to some very vital particulars, the attitude of the New Zealand Government has yet to be defined in detail. For example, the Prime Minister quoted last evening his own reply to a question addressed to him by the Dominion President of the Returned Soldiers’ Association (the Hon W. Perry). The reply was that compulsory national service, civil, military and financial, is to be instituted, as required. Even with Mr Fraser’s added explanation that no steps will be taken until they are needed, or without adequate . consideration and the necessary organisation, this leaves something to the imagination. The position no doubt will be made clear in its details very soon after Parliament meets on Thursday next.

One very important decision made known by the Prime Minister was that it is not proposed to set up a National Cabinet, representing Government and Opposition, though it is proposed to constitute a National War Council, representing the parties in Parliament, employers, workers and farmers. Although it is apparently to be given an important scope of activity, the War Council of necessity will be an advisory and not an executive body. No doubt it will be able to render valuable service. Whether, however, it is wise to abstain from setting up a National Cabinet, is open to question. The Prime Minister and his colleagues have an undoubted constitutional right to retain the responsibilities of government in their own hands, but there is much to be said for the view that in refusing to set up a National Cabinet, which in its turn might delegate important executive powers to a War Cabinet of small membership, it is sacrificing a very important means of consolidating public opinion in support of the Government and of the national war effort.