Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JULY 31, 1941. TWO WARNINGS-BOTH TIMELY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 July 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JULY 31, 1941. TWO WARNINGS-BOTH TIMELY.

TWO British Ministers were reported yesterday as uttering warnings which may be expected to command ready attention throughout the British Empire and the territories ol its Allies and indeed in all lands in which the spirit, ot freedom Si ill lives, even those of them in which it.is submerged .for the time being by the Nazi flood. The warnings in question related to two methods by which Hitler may seek to gain his abominable ends and both need to be guarded against. In a speech in the House of Commons in which he defended the organisation, and control of British war production and supply, Mr Churchill touched upon a number of encouraging changes that have occurred in the Avar situation, but did. so only to declare that “we must not be led for a moment to suppose that the worst is over” and that: “It would be madness to suppose that Russia or the United States are going to win the war for us.” Britain, Mr Churchill affirmed, must be prepared to meet an attempt at invasion dictated, by a gambler’s desperation.” This is counsel which British people everywhere, and nowhere better than in the heroic Mother Country, rvill understand and appreciate. The people who bore themselves so gallantly a year and more ago, in the dark days of the collapse of France and the evacuation of Dunkirk, are not likely now to think of leaning on others, but what Mr Churchill has demanded is that any thought of even the slightest relaxation shall be cast aside and the rvar effort of Britain and the-Empire intensified in every possible wayj until victory has been Avon. It is not, of course, certain that, the Nazis will be able even to attempt, an invasion, of the. United Kingdom. It is possible that they have entered on a period in which they will proceed by way of disaster after disaster to their appointed doom. But it is the part of ordinary prudence to assume that Hitler and his gang, or rather the duped hordes who do their bidding, will yet make one wild beast effort after another until they are finally beaten down. Even, however, should the Nazis prove to be incapable of any such formidable further effort as an attempt to invade the United Kingdom, the organisation of the greatest striking force the Empire can muster will not in any case amount to wasted effort. If it is not needed to smash further desperate efforts by the Nazis, the organised power of the Empire will be available to strike such blows as will shorten the Avar. The occasion is one in which optimists and those who incline to caution, or even - to pessimism, should be of one mind as to the right course to pursue. The second of the two warnings which have been mentioned Avas given, by the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Anthony Eden when, in. a, speech in London, lie spoke of another form of Nazi attack —the “peace blitz,” which Hitler is expected to launch in the near future. Mr Eden summed up the ppsition admirably when he declared that a peace move by Hitler is a contradiction in terms. Hitler undoubtedly is as incapable of making a genpine peace offer to any country as he is of achieA ring peace in his own demented and disordered mind. Not only is he a. creature of lies, who has broken every pledge he ever gave, but he is possessed of no basis on which to make a genuine peace offer if he wished to do so. Hitler is not. the protagonist of a new order, but a creature of demonic, energy and ingenuity who has succeeded to a remarkable extent in enthroning barbarism and crime. His essential achievements have been theft, rapine and the murder and maltreatment, of human beings on a scale such as the world had never seen before. It is a matter, not of suspicion or of theory, but of demonstrated fact, that in Hitler’s outlook a peace move, or a peace agreement, represents a means of deluding an intended victim until he has built up strength with which to strike that victim down. Mr Eden’s Avarning is timely, not because there is or can be any doubt as to what a. peace move by Hitler implies, but because there are in all countries a certain number of foolish people who think that peace is to be welcomed in almost any conditions. ■ There are in truth as good reasons and as great a necessity for making Avar to the death on Hitler and all that he stands for as there are for maintaining the criminal code and other elements of law in any individual and well-ordered country.