POLITICAL WARFARE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 December 1941, Page 6

POLITICAL WARFARE

BRITAIN URGED TO TAKE ACTION. HITLER’S EUROPEAN LIABILITIES. “I would like the Government, and particularly the Foreign Secretary, to consider whether the time is not arriving when political warfare may be just as important as military warfare can be,” said Mr H. B. Lees-Smith, M.P., speaking in the House of Commons. “Hitherto, Hitler has led the way in political warfare, and it is largely through that that he has conquered a large part of Europe. We have not had a large supply of munitions for this kind of warfare, because we have not had very striking positive successes, but I am impressed by the fact that, although we may still not have great dramatic victories, there is a shift in the whole balance of the war. Events are imperceptibly taking place as a result of which a general situation has developed which may give is an opportunity for a political counteroffensive before much more time' has passed. For that we ought to get ready now. There is a great danger that the part which political warfare can play may be under-estimated. I foresee terrible and frightful times facing the nations of Europe in the next few months. There may be equally perplexing situations in which the balance may be turned without a very large margin of safety, and where political warfare may play a decisive part. There are tens of millions of Fifth Columnists now on our side who are available in Europe, and the position of Hitler may be very easily turned into a liability. He is not getting any troops from them, and he has exhausted all the loot he captured. He cannot use them to any large extent for production so long as we keep our grip on the raw mat'erals, and they have open to them methods of ‘ca canny,” non-co-operation, sabotage and other methods of unarmed warfare which the Gestapo cannot prevent, and which will surround them with a most terrible and murderous enemy.”