Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1942. AN ATTACK REPELLED.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 July 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1942. AN ATTACK REPELLED.

THE want of confidence debate in the British House of Coinnions ended, as it was expected to, in the complete failure of the more extreme critics of the British National Government to establish their case or to beat up more than a handful of support for their proposal to censure 1 the Government with particular reference to the central direction of the war. Ihe division figures of 475 votes to 25 against the motion weic in themselves overwhelming and decisive, lint the position icached most certainly is not one in which Mr Churchill and his colleagues, and others who share responsibility lor the highei direction of the war, are entitled to sit back complacently and rejoice in the discomfiture of their detractors.

It is only necessary to read Hie speech in which the British Prime Minister replied to his critics to perceive that he is last and least of all men inclined to complacency. The essence of his defence was that untiring and well-sustained efforts had been made under great handicaps and in lace ol great difficulties and that more had been accomplished, and that to better effect, than the critics of the Government were willing to concede. Making no promises of easy and rapid progress towards victory, Mr Churchill said that: — He would say nothing about the future except to invite the House and the nation to face with courage whatever it might unfold. He had never shared the view that this would be a short war or that it would end in 1942. It was far more likely to be a long war. It was on this basis that the British Prime Minister asked the House of Commons to demonstrate by its vote that there was a strong and solid Government in Britain. There is little enough doubt that the nation, in its Homeland and throughout the Empire, will endorse the response the House of Commons made to that appeal. At the same time, it may be expected and hoped that Mr Churchill and his colleagues will feel that they are called upon to concentrate with unsparing energy on the task of weeding out incompetence and weakness wherever they are to be found, in military leadership or in the direction of any branch of war organisation.'. The necessity for ruthless reorganisation and the cutting out of every deadening element in the responsible conduct of the war is very clearly established. Much of the criticism advanced by the supporters of the no-confidence motion was rather obviously undiscriminating and failed to take account of the heavy handicaps inevitably incurred by a nation, sincerely intent on peace, when it goes belatedly and unwillingly to war. That the war organisation of the nation has weaknesses and shortcomings which cannot easily or quickly be overcome makes it all the more essential, however, that the highest attainable standards of efficiency should be aimed at and sought with relentless vigour and with an uncompromising subordination of all secondary considerations. As leader of the British nation at war, Mr Churchill has an altogether remarkable standing and the latest vote of the House of Commons is no more than a fair recognition and attestation of that fact. There is not by any means the same unquestioning confidence, however, that the higher direction of the war is everywhere and at all points in as good hands.