If there is one test to be applied to the speech of Mr. Alfred Duff-Cooper, Minister of Information, broadcast on Saturday night, it is that he was speaking to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Britons who actually experienced the German air-raids during the past week. He was talking to those who had been able to see what was happening for themselves, and who were able to judge for 1 themselves not only the precise effect of the German bombing, but their own reactions to it. It would have been the height of foolish-mess for the Minister to have spoken in the optimistic way he did, if his optimism were founded upon untruth. Consequently, if the German claims of widespread damage inflicted upon southern ports were true the people of those ports would immediately be able to apply very destructive criticism to Mr. Duff-Cooper's speech. It is to be assumed, therefore, that Mr. Duff-Cooper only said that which he knew would be justified in the judgment of all those many people who were close to the actual facts of last week, It may be somewhat of an exaggeration to speak of the past week as one of British victory, though it is a fact that the Germans have paid a heavy toll for their temerity, and that the results of their raids in no way justify the damage which the British ave succeeded in inflicting upon their enemy, August 15 the day on which Hitler was to have dictated his peace terms has passed. His faith in the stars has not been justified, unless of course Hitler's soothsayers erred in their calculations. There is now talks that probably within a week or ten days a decision will have been forced. That also remains to be seen. At any rate these attempts on the part of the German propagandists to strike terror into Britons by such methods are not likely to succeed. Indeed the past week has shown that they are clearly doomed, to failure, and that there is indeed in Britain as Mr, Duff-Cooper says "a sense of achievement, a note of victory and a longing only that they shall come again in greater numbers in order that we may continue to take the fearful, toll of them that we have already taken."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.