PARTY STRIFE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 March 1941, Page 4

PARTY STRIFE

ABOLITION IN PERIOD OF RECONSTRUCTION HOPED FOR BY BRITISH PREMIER. COMRADESHIP IN FIGHTING NAZISM. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 27. Expressing the hope that party strife would be abolished in the period of reconstruction after the war, the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, said today: “If this hope were not realised and if no common ground be found on post-war policy between the parties it would be a misfortune, because we would then have to ask the nation to decide upon outstanding 'issues and party government would be resumed. “I may say, however, that some ties and friendships are being formed between members of the Administration from all parties which will not be very easy to tear asunder, and the comradeship, dangers passed, and toils endured in common will for ever exercise an influence upon British national politics far deeper than the shibboleths and slogans of competing partisans. “We have found good, loyal, and able comrades in our Labour and Liberal friends, and we work together with the single aim of saving Europe and the world from the curse of the tyranny of Nazism." The Prime Minister continued on a note o'f robust confidence. He said, “I cannot pretend to you, my friends and supporters, that I took up my task with any other feeling than that of invincible confidence. That is the feeling which inspires me here today. We had a deliverance at Dunkirk which gave us back the core and fibre of our regular Army. “Since the!) we have had a series of notable victories. First of all, there was the frustration of Hitler's invasion plan by the brilliant exploits of the Royal Air Force. Second, the frustration of his attempt to cow and terrorise the civil population of this country by ruthless bombing. Third, we had the destruction of Italian power and empire in Afrcia by our Army there. Although we were left unsupported by our French ally and although we were deprived of all strategic points necessary to maintain direct contact, through the Mediterranean, nevertheless we have been able to remove almost all—and the rest soon—of the strain which Italian tyranny has wrought upon African soil. "But there is another supreme event, more blessed than victories, namely, the rousing "spirit of the great American nation and its ever more intimate association with the common cause. Much of that has been accomplished by the sentiment aroused in American, breasts by the spectacle of the courage and devotion of the simple, ordinary folk in this country in standing up to the fire of the enemy. “Britain could, I believe, save herself for the time being, but it will take the combineci efforts of the whole Eng-lish-speaking world to save mankind and Europe from the menace of Hitlerism and open the paths of progress to the people.”