Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1940. WORK OF THE WAR COUNCIL.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 July 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1940. WORK OF THE WAR COUNCIL.

JN paying tribute to the good work already done by the re-cently-constituted War Council and in affirming his conviction that it will continue to render very valuable service to the Dominion and the Government, the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) has made out a very good case. Apart from secret recommendations which have been approved and adopted, Mr Fraser listed a number relating to various aspects and extensions of Expeditionary Force and home defence training and preparation, the supply to the United Kingdom of clothing or other equipment locally produced, naval, enlistment, the reregistration of firearms, supply of small-arm and other ammunition, fuel oil supplies, hospital care of sick and injured members of the forces, air training, mobilisation procedure, supervision of aliens, co-operation with Australia and other important questions and details.

Even as it stands, and without any allowance being made for the presumably not less important secret recommendations which have been adopted, the list 'is impressive. So much is this so that a captious critic might find in the character and extent of the list "grounds for accusing the Government and its official advisers and departments of having been rather remiss in some essential details of war' preparation. Passing over any suggestion of that kind, however, it seems easy to agree with the” Prime Minister that the War Council, on its early performance, is likely very handsomely to justify its existence.

Including in its membership representatives of all sections of "the community, the War Council should be well able to forward and help to give practical effect to the very general and indeed almost universal desire that the resources of the Dominion shall be drawn upon to the limit in making oui contribution to the war effort of the Empire what it ought to be. As the recommendations it has already made demonstrate,• the War Council is well constituted and placed to go keenly into all questions of national military organisation for service overseas and for home defence and also into questions of pioduction. The keynote of our national effort and of the consideration of that effort by the War Council is very well sounded in some words used the other day by a veteran Australian Minister (Mr W. M. Hughes) with reference to his own country. Having commended in glowing language the noble example now being set by the people of Britain, Working as they have never worked, before and believing that they will oxeithrow Hitler as their ancestors overthrew Napoleon, Air Hughes said: — Our danger, though less imminent, is not less real. For us. as for our kinsmen in Britain, this is a battle to the death. If we fail, we shall go down and everything that makes life worth living will be lost. We must prepare to defend the country against an enemy, no matter from what quarter he comes. That statement of the position applies as definitely and as exactly to New Zealand as to Australia. Prudence demands that we should, marshal and use the whole of our resources, in military effort and in Ihe productive effort without which military effort is vain, to the great end of overthrowing international gangsterdom and re-establishing peace and security. The War Council is advantageously and even, commandingly placed to determine and to demonstrate how the national effort may be keyed to the energy and speed that are demanded in an unexampled emergency.

THE PRICE THAT IS PAID.

G-RTM and heatt-searching news was conveyed in reports yesterday which told of the loss of seven British bombing planes in an attack on a single point in enemy-occupied territory—the aerodrome at Stavanger, in Norway. Day by day, or almost day by day, some British planes are being lost in attacks which range far and wide over Germany or over territory now tinder her domination, but it is seldom indeed that as heavy a price has to be paid for the unceasing and increasing damage tints inflicted on the enemy as was paid, at Stavanger on Tuesday. If may be hoped and believed that the enemy will not often he able to exact a toll, relatively as heavy, of the lives of our best and bravest, but even when better fortune attends our airmen the way to victory is being broken at a continuing and tragic sacrifice of gallant youthful lives. A nation that is to be worthy of that sacrifice must set. its ideals high and must be able to count at least, upon loyal, faithful and ungrudging service from those of its citizens who are incapable of emulating the deeds of their chivalry of the skies.

There is no question of the dash and sweep of the British air attack on the enemy being impaired by losses like those suffered at Stavanger on Tuesday. In that particular area the Germans had the combined advantage of strongly organised ground defences and a monopoly of the use of short-range fighters. Even so the enemy did not escape loss. At least one British bomber which returned damaged was able to report shooting down one Messerschmitt, damaging a second enemy fighter and possibly damaging several others. In relatively weak and sporadic attacks on Britain, too, the enemy lost as many machines as British squadrons lost on the whole, on the same day, in attacks driven home with smashing effect on an extended series of objectives. Tragic losses are inevitable in air warfare, but that British airmen are maintaining triumphantly the ascendancy they established at an early stage in the war is being demonstrated more and more clearly as time goes

Convincing evidence is available, too, of the tremendous and widespread damage that is being done by air attack in Germany and in German-occupied territory, while it has yet Io appear that the enemy is capable of inflicting anything like corresponding damage on Britain. In his latest broadcast, Mr •J. B. Priestley declared that in their air attacks on Britain thus far the Nazis had achieved so little either in damage to military objectives or in effect on civilian morale that the general opinion in the Mother Country was that these raids had only been “feelers” rather than serious efforts of their kind. If is of course possible that the enemy is capable of much more formidable efforts, hut in that case, as another authority has pointed out, there will be a correspondingly increased opportunity for the British ground defences and defending squadrons to show what thev can do,