"On the other hand conditions and course of fights have so far been favourable to us. I told the House two months ago that whereas in France our fighter aircraft were wont to inflict loss of two or three to one upon the Germans, and in the fighting at Dunkirk, which was a kind of no-man's-land, about three to four to.|one, we expected that in the attack on his island we would achieve a greatest combatants in the struggle. By so doing, France would have preserved the continuity of her life, and the French Empire might have advanced with the British Empire to the rescue of the independence and integrity of the French Motherland.
"In our own case, if we had been put in the terrible position of France, a contingency now happily impossible, although of course it would have been the duty of all war leaders to fight on here to the end, it would also have been their duty, as - indicated in my speech of June 4, to provide as much as possible for the naval security of Canada and our Dominions, and moke sure that they had means to carry on the struggle from beyond the larger /ratio.
"That certainly has come true (cheers). It must also be remembered that all enemy machines and pilots shot down over our island or the seas which surround it, are either destroyed or captured, whereas a considerable proportion of our machines, and also our pilots, are saved and are soon ready again to come into action.
"The vast and admirable system of salvage directed by the Ministry of Aircraft Production ensures the speediest return to the fighting line ut damaged machines, and also the most provident and speedy use of all spare parts and material.
"At the same time the splendid, may astounding, increase in output and repair of British aircraft and engines, which Lord Beaverbrook has achieved by genius of organization and a drive which looks like magic (cheers), has given us overflowing reserves of every type of aircraft, and an ever-mounting stream of production, both in quantity and quality.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.