ANXIETY AND CONFIDENCE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 May 1940, Page 4

ANXIETY AND CONFIDENCE.

POR a good many days, and before it had been thought that the war situation would be complicated as it now is by the Belgian surrender, there, have been frank expressions, both in Britain and in other Empire countries at once of anxiety and of confidence. In this there has been no element of contradiction. Anxiety has been and is felt for the Allied forces hitherto including, with the British Expeditionary borce, and some French divisions, the Belgian Army —holding the northern and isolated section of the European battlefront. Deep anxiety naturally has been awakened, too, by the extent to which Britain is now in danger of attack by air and perhaps even of invasion.

A frank perception of these dangers, and the concern they have occasioned, has, however, in no degree weakened the confidence with which Britain and her Allies look to ultimate and assured victory. Whatever the immediate outcome of the battle for the Channel coast and whatever the scale on which the enemy may find it possible to develop a direct assault on Britain, it is not in doubt that the war will be continued by our own nation and France with the unfaltering and expanding vigour of free nations resolved and prepared to make any and every sacrifice that ultimate and decisive victory may entail.

Nothing is to be gained by minimising the gravity of the situation in which the British Expeditionary Force and the French divisions fighting in its company are now placed. With the Belgian Army still doing its part the position was extremely serious. As one of yesterday’s messages observed, the Allied armies

have been harassed simultaneously by massed infantry in the east and by heavy armoured divisions which forced the Arras gap and are now threatening their rear from the coast. All the time, too, they are being attacked from the air.

Tn spite of the heroic and lineeasing efforts of their own air forces, the Allies are placed at a terrible disadvantage on account of the masses of enemy aircraft still available for use against them in the definitely limited area held in the north. Full light on the position admittedly has not been given and will not be given until a decisive stage has been reached. Obviously, however, the Belgian defection does not brighten the immediate outlook.'

The outcome of the. battle for the Channel coast can only bo awaited, but the vital demand of the situation in any case is for the iron resolution in the fighting forces and the peoples of the Allied nations in which they assuredly will not be found wanting, it is being made plainer day by day that the British and French nations are alike animated by a grim determination to cai'ry the war to a victorious conclusion, whatever setbacks they may suffer by the way and whatever additions may be made Io the list of their enemies. Against all that the enemy may for the moment accomplish in his desperate endeavour, regardless of cost in lives and material, to force an early decision. there is to be set not only the awakened resolution of free nations, but vastly greater ultimate resources. These days of great anxiety are for flic Allied democracies days also of proud confidence. In every part of the Empire and not least, it may be hoped in New Zealand, the present turn of events will be and should lie regarded simply as setting now emphasis on the necessity of a maximum effort for victory.