Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1942. WAR DEMANDS IN BRITAIN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 May 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1942. WAR DEMANDS IN BRITAIN.

JN apparently dispassionate comment on the restive mood that continues unabated in Britain, the “Economist” lias said that the strongest of all the currents behind the eddies of the recent debate in the House of Commons “is the demand of the ordinary people for action.” Dismissing with contempt the intrigues of petty politicians—back-benchers on both sides of the House “who are afraid of the darkness that is falling on them and their puppetry” —the “Economist” finds that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the Avar effort on two main grounds. These are, it says:—

Firstly, that weapons and men are mobilised but not employed effectively; secondly, that the interests of certain sections of the community still stand in the way of full efficiency.

How far these criticisms are justified is to a great extent a matter of conjecture. An element of wise prudence must go hand in hand with enterprise in dealing with the problems of command, production and industrial organisation which present themselves in Britain, as in other nations fighting the Axis. It is not a matter of choosing between what is safe and what is risky, for war is an affair of taking risks. There is a degree of warlike risk, however, which no government is justified in taking even under the most insistent urging from the population it represents.

The demand for an immediate or early invasion of Western Europe which is finding more and more emphatic expression in Britain is in itself to be Welcomed unreservedly, if only as showing how determined the mass of the nation is that a war on which it entered most, reluctantly shall be carried vigorously, to a decisive conclusion. It must remain the responsibility of the'British Government, with all the ascertainable facts before it, to determine when an invasion of Europe shall be undertaken. Nothing more than the time factor is in question, for Sir Stafford Cripps stated recently, on behalf of the Government, that it is planning an invasion of Europe at the proper time.

It must be hoped, however, that the restive mood of the British people—in itself an impressive and formidable expression of the mind of the democracy—will tend to sweep away any unwarranted obstacles to action in the extent to which they exist. If there is any failure to make effective use of available resources, or if sectional interests are being allowed in any degree to impede efficient action, these factors most certainly should be swept away.

Suggestions that would be most disturbing if they had any foundation are attributed to Mr Harold Nicolson, a former Parliamentary Secretary to the British Ministry of Information, in an article quoted in a cablegram received from London yesterday. As his comments on the present mood of the British people are transmitted, Mr Nicolson thinks not only that the British people are exaggerating the Russian contribution to the Allied cause, but that there is a possibility that Russia might yet be bribed into making a separate peace with, the aggressors. This suggestion appears to be totally unwarranted, and the present war policy of both the British and United States governments —a policy of rendering all possible assistance to Russia—implies that they utterly discount and discredit any suggestion of the kind.

In any ease, there can be no excuse for half-hearted action in dealing with this or any other phase of war policy. It is the responsibility and duty of the British Government to formulate decisions and to act upon these decisions with an energetic and unstinted use of al] the resources at its command. As a spur to action on these lines the restive spirit now manifested by the people, of the United Kingdom—a spirit not without its echo in other parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations — assuredly is not to be regretted.