Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1942. SECOND FRONT DEMANDS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 July 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1942. SECOND FRONT DEMANDS.

WHAT must in all the circumstances be regarded as a peculiar feature of the second European front controversy as it has developed in Britain is that some attempts are being made to treat demands for a second front as an agitation running counter to the policy of the Government and liable to disturb national unity. Thus the British Minister of Labour (MrErnest Bevin), speaking in Wales on Sunday evening, said, as he is reported, that those who were clamouring for a second front were helping Hitler. Mr Bevin added: Our friends of the Left, who shout this slogan, are creating the very condition which we all want to avoid. It might be thought that Mr Bevin has forgotten that as recently as June 11, it was announced simultaneously in London, 'Washington and Moscow that Russia had reached separate agreements with the United States and Britain—agreements which provided, amongst other things, for a second front against Hitler. The form in which this item of agreement was stated in an official White House announcement was.: — The urgent tasks of creating a second front in Europe in 1942. It is true that the simultaneous announcement made in the three Allied capitals left open and undetermined all details of time (save for the reference to 1942), place and conditions in which the second front in Europe was to be established, but the announcement could hardly be read otherwise than as promising powerful diversionary action in Europe and on behalf of Russia, this year. For instance, the “Christian Science Monitor,” a carefully accurate newspaper and one not given to strained sensationalism, headed the. news with a five column line: “U.S.-Soviet-Britain Pledge New Front.” It would appear that for any confusion of ideas that has arisen on the subject of a second European front, and for any danger of division that has been created in this way, the three governments which set their names to the simultaneous announcement made on June 11 must accept full responsibility. How far, in these circumstances, was Mr Bevin justified in declaring that “those who clamoured for a second front were helping Hitler?” The question here involved of course is of minor importance in comparison with the vital necessity of doing everything that is possible to help Russia in what has every appearance of being her dire extremity. What Britain and the United States are actually capable of doing can be determined only by responsible national leaders, in possession of all the facts. It is not for a moment to be expected or desired that these leaders should say beforehand what they intend to do. On all grounds, however, and as much from the standpoint of upholding and safeguarding general Allied interests as from that of helping Russia in her extremity, it must be supposed that nothing that is practicable will be left undone. While the need for whatever diversionary action is possible is established sufficiently by the existing state of affairs in Russia, it is emphasised further by the position in Egypt, and by the possibility that new military problems may at any time be opened up, in the area east of the Mediterranean, by an Axis attack on Turkey.