Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JULY 26, 1940. A COLUMN NOT NEEDED.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 July 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JULY 26, 1940. A COLUMN NOT NEEDED.

JT is yet another proof that the people of the United Kingdom are well able to face the dangers and demands of the war in the right spirit that the “silent column” recently suggested by the British Minister of Information (Air Duff Cooper) has passed already, in the words of Air Winston Churchill, “into innocuous dissolution.” Observing that the movement of forming “silent columns” was well meant in an endeavour to discourage loose and ill-digested talk of a depressing character about the war, Air Churchill added:— However, when the idea was put down in black and white it did not look by any means so attractive and seemed to suggest that reasonable and intelligent discussion about the war between loyal and well-disposed people ought not to take place. On the contrary, the Government is glad that the 'general aspects, of the war should be understood and discussed, provided there is not a breach, however inadvertent, of official secrecy. Here is a ruling that may be welcomed unreservedly. In justice to Air Duff Cooper it must be noted that, in the observations out of which the “silent column” suggestion arose, he made a well-warranted appeal against the dissemination, or the toleration, of fantastic and mischievous rumours. It is the duty of all good citizens to set themselves firmly against rumourmongering and of course to respect and support the measure I of official secrecy of necessity entailed in the organisation of the nation for war. As to those “general aspects of the war” to which Air Churchill referred, however, there is assuredly no reason why they should not be discussed freely and frpnkly in any British country. On the contrary, nothing but added strength and resolution need be anticipated from the merits of the war being dealt with as openly as .possible in the light of day. Our basic position as a nation, in this war is that we have a case that will bear any examination to which it may be subjected and that we can well afford to leave to our totalitarian enemies all the devices of devious duplicity and attempts to obscure or distort the truth. Subject always to the reservation that drastic action must be taken against anything in the nature of assistance to, or actual collusion with the enemy, by subversive agitation and intrigue or in any other way, we shall best uphold our national unity by maintaining an absolutely open freedom of discussion. There are minority elements, represented probably in nearly all parts of the Empire, though not in great total strength, which oppose the present war and would as a matter of course oppose any war. Some of these people are honest but misguided fanatics who contend that the war is not in the interests of the workers, that it is an “imperialist” war, and. so forth. The essential fact about these people is that they have no ease and that their distorted contentions will be dismissed as a matter of course, in an atmosphere of freedom, by any normally intelligent human being. British people in all their lands know well that they are engaged in no imperialist adventure, but are defending, not only their own rights and liberties, but the fabric of modern civilisation, against forces of crude and retrogressive barbarism which, if they were allowecl, would spread slavery and desolation over the whole world. It is plain enough to the people of the British Empire, with the inconsiderable exceptions mentioned, that the destruction of Nazism is demanded, not only in order that our own national life may be defended and safeguarded, but as the only means of liberating peoples now under the Nazi heel, and Germany itself, from base and degrading slavery. As a people we need no “silent column” to protect and strengthen our morale. We can afford to look squarely at every fact and issue of the war. Our national unity is spontaneous; it is based upon, understanding and agreement. 11 is thus in the most extreme contrast with the condition of affairs ruling in Nazi Germany, where the power of Hitler and his gang would collapse speedily but for the coercive.power of the Gestapo the concentration camp and other developments of espionage and brute force by which it is meantime upheld. RESISTANCE THAT CONTINUES. REPORT yesterday of fighting between Chinese guerillas and Japanese forces in mainland territory not far from Hong Kong indicates once again the failure of the invaders to achieve positive and decisive results after over three years of tremendous military effort in China. As a correspondent lately in China wrote recently in the “Sydney Morning Herald”:— Guerillas, it has been said, never yet won a war; and nothing happening in China tends to disprove that statement. But China’s guerillas are preventing Japan achieving a victory which would leave- her free for action elsewhere and which continues to escape her after each “overwhelming” success.' Japan has driven the organised Chinese armies into the western provinces and her bombers periodically make murderous raids on Chungking. Ostensibly she occupies and controls a vast expanse of China inland from the seaboard, byt episodes like the guerilla .attack in the Hong Kong region show how far the occupation is from being really effective. Instead of having as yet derived economic or other advantages from the “China affair,” Japan is still under the necessity of maintaining a vast army in the field, in conditions which have disrupted her national economic life. Of late she has adopted an increasingly belligerent tone towards both Britain and the United States and one of her newspapers was quoted yesterday as forecasting a Government statement that Japan’s foreign policy will be concentrated chiefly, first, on cooperating with Germany and Italy; second, Japanese participation in the construction of a new world order; third, as part of the latter. Japan will speed the establishment of an “East Asia life zone," which will include the south seas region. Whatever significance may attach to talk of this kind, Japan’s power to undertake new aggression in any direction most certainly is curtailed heavily at present by the extent to which she is involved in China, with no apparent hope of escape.