Confidence Remains

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 132, 2 January 1942, Page 4

Confidence Remains

E ended 1940 convinced that the Britain which had survived Dunkirk and the fall of France could face any kind of future with confidence. Nothing that has happened since has shaken that confidence. Our enemies have increased in number. They have increased enormously in striking power. They are attacking us on every continent and in every ocean, not merely as sea or land raiders, but with all the violence and cunning of which two hundred million scientific savages are jointly capable. No such assault has ever been launched in the history of civilisation. Yet it is the sober truth that we are not dismayed. Why should we be? The year has brought us a hundred million new enemies, all, or nearly all, in cunningly pre-arranged positions. But it has brought us three hundred million allies, and the biggest fighting force ever assembled in the world under one flag. It has brought painful reverses; some of them so depressing that it- would not be possible to forget them if anyone wanted to. But 1941 ends with nearly every German and Italian army in retreat, with their mastery of European skies almost certainly gone for ever, and with Britain still firmly controlling the decisive areas of the ocean. It is true that the end of the year finds both Britain and the United States gravely embarrassed in the Pacific; and that for the first time in history Australia and New Zealand are threatened with assault on their own shores. But what Englishman or American, what Dutchman, Australian or New Zealander, would exchange his worries for those of the people of Japan, who have been pushed into a war in ‘which victory would be the greatest international miracle of modern times, and who, if the miracle did happen, would then require another as great to keep their fellow-brigands from robbing them of the plunder? We remain confident because the scales, whatever disturbs them, still tilt our way. To get the United States and Russia as eager allies Germany would have surrendered Norway, France and the Low Countries, and given away its whole fleet of submarines. To keep them permanently neutral it would have closed every office in South America and called back all its Jews. But such possibilities have vanished. If Japan is more powerful than the United States, the Dutch East Indies, China, and at least half of Russia, anxiety as we enter another year is justified. If she is no mofe powerful than the facts plainly indicate, alarm is not merely unjustified. It is silly.