WISDOM OF SILENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 November 1941, Page 6

WISDOM OF SILENCE

ON SUBJECT OF WAR PLANS STRESSED BY BRITISH PREMIER SOME FURTHER POINTS FROM SPEECH. NEED OF UNRELAXED EFFORT. (Received This Day, 11.37 a.m.) RUGBY, November 12. In the course of his address in the House of Commons, Mr Churchill asked to be excused from discussing the war position, as he had done a month ago, and said he would refrain from predictions about the future. A month ago, he had remarked on the prolonged silence of Hitler, which apparently provoked the speech in which Hitler said Moscow would fall in a few days. Mr Churchill said that showed him how much wiser it would have been to go on keeping his mouth shut. In dealing with the improvement in the shipping position, as reported in an earlier message, Mr Churchill said that, apart from captures from the enemy or United States assistance, the net loss of shipping had been reduced in the last four months to a good deal less than a fifth of what it was in the previous four months. AMERICAN SHIPBUILDING. In observing that there had never

been more U-boats or long-range aircraft than were working now, Mr Churchill added that the facts he had cited gave “a solid and sober assurance that we shall be able to maintain our seaborne traffic until the greatly increased American shipbuilding promised for 1942 comes into service. American building of merchant ships is on a scale many times what we could do in this Island. Having regard to many other calls., our new shipbuilding is confined to a certain proportion of our resources, but America is launching an output of shipbuilding incomparably greater than wc could produce, surpassing the enormous and successful efforts she made in the last war. If we are able to get through this year, we shall certainly find ourselves in a good supply of ships in 1942,. and if the war against the U-boats an denemy aircraft should continue to prosper as it has done—• about which, of course, there can be no guarantee—it seems to me that the freedom Powers will be possessed of large quantities of ships in 1943, which will enable overseas operations to take place that are utterly beyond British resources at the present time.”

ENEMY SHIPPING LOSSES. I After mentioning that in the last 9 four months nearly a million tons of 3 enemy shipping had been sunk or seriously damaged, Mr Churchill continued: “In the Mediterranean the enemy losses have been particularly severe and there is evidence that he is finding it very difficult to reinforce or even supply his armies on the African shores. This last convoy was a particularly valuable one and its total destruction, together with the devastation being wrought by our submarines in the Mediterranean, certainly is very much to be rejoiced 3 over. There are at least 40,000 women, ’ children and non-combatants in Abys-

sinia. Some time ago, guided by our . humanitarian instincts, we offered to ' r let Italy take these people home if t they would be sent under necessary r safeguards to ports on the Red Sea. . Italy accepted the proposal and an agreement was reached on all details, ’ but Italy has never been able, so far, to send the ships that are necessary, ' because the destruction of her ship- ■ ping is proceeding at such a high rate and to such a serious extent.” DISCLOSURE BY HESS. Of information gained from Rudolf

Hess, now a prisoner in Britain, M: Churchill said: “In the various re marks that Hess has let fall from tim< to time during his sojourn in ow midst, nothing has been more cleai than that Hitler relied upon a starva. tion attack even more than upon invasion to bring us to our knees. Hi; hopes were centred upon our .starvation, as his boasts have made the world aware. As far as 1941 is concerned, those hopes at least have been dashed to the ground, but this only increases his need to come at us by direct invasion as soon as he can screw up his courage and make arrangements to take the plunge. We must have everything working forward for the improved weather of spring, so that we shall be well prepared to meet any scale of attack than can be directed upon us.” Although the country was infinitely stronger than six or twelve months ago, the enemy had had ample time for preparation, and if an attack were attempted, Mr Churchill said, it was certain to be based upon a plan that had been thought out in every detail, with customary ruthlessness and thoroughness. There was no doubt, he went on to state, that the diet of the people had been severely curtailed, but it was still sufficient to ensure physical health. As a precautionary measure, stocks necessary for a proper diet had been amassed and amounted to double the stocks in the country at the outbreak of war. In the short space of two years, the area under crops had been increased by no less than 45 per cent, and the corn harvest was fifty per cent greater than in 1939.

“Despite all difficulties, we must go on and produce still more,” said the Prime Minister, “not only because of the ever-present menace to our importations from abroad, but because it is possible, as the war develops, that our military operations may make much more extensive demands on our shipping than it is now possible to meet.”