SUPREME EFFORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 July 1940, Page 5

SUPREME EFFORT

DEMANDED BY FORMER WAR MINISTER UNITED DEFENCE POLICY IN IRELAND. UNRESTRICTED APPLICATION OF BLOCKADE. <By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, July 1. A vigorous policy in flic conduct of the war was urged by the former War Secretary, l\'lr Tlore-Belisha, in a speech at Devonport tonight. In particular he advocated a bold and imaginative policy which would produce a united defence policy in Ireland.

"The question may be: who is to get the Irish ports first?” Mr HoreBclisha said. "Hitler can only be prevented from doing so by a united defence policy in Ireland. Surely such a policy is not beyond the wit of the Government.

“Britain already has blockades in the North Sea and the Channel. If Germany obtains the Shetland and Faroe Islands and Iceland our North Atlantic routes would be jeopardised. German occupation of Ireland would cover our only remaining flank and make the arrival of supplies from America most hazardous. Mr Hore-Belisha asked also for the application at once, and without respite, of the blockade to the whole coast of France. He claimed that there was a tendency for nations which were once friendly to the Allies to compromise and to seek the protection of the enemy, and said that this tendency could be broken by a policy of determined action such as would unite and muster the whole nation in the supreme effort which it desired now to make, and thereby secure in the coming test the triumph of the Allied cause. “We must recognise that the French Government which has broken its bond with Britain is not friendly to us,” he said. We must not allow our chances of victory, which Have been rendered more difficult, to be still further hampered by the passing of the French Fleet into enemy hands.”