Ang.
'The speech, which Mr. Winston Churehi made in the House of Commons on Tuesd: deserves to be read and re-read by every' loyal Briton, for a clearer expose of the war! situation it is difficult to conceive. IL is as! dispassionate and as lucid as a chairman's! speech at a company's annual meeting, devoid of the bombastic rhetoric so dearly beloved of the enemy, but full of facts. Those are set clearly and as unemotionally as in sheet, and the message which Mr. [Churchill gave to Britons the world over, neutrals and to the enemy themselves that there was no question whether the [British Empire would win, but merely wi He envisaged continuance of hostilities of how the Empire will emerge from the struggle, but only as to the time which will be necessary to bring Hitler and his gang to their knees. One of the astonishing things to be noticed when looking back over the past. two years is the manner in which Hitler has, to use General Ironside's phrase, missed the bus," in dealing with Great Britain. Had Hitler struck in 1938, he would have found the Allies completely unprepared. He did not do so. There was an opportunity following the evacuation of! Dunkirk to be content to hold the Allies in France and strike direct at the heart of Britain. He missed it.
Again when France capitulated it was pected that the might of Germany would be directed immediately against the British Isles. It was not, and Great Britain was given a very appreciable time to put her defences in the best possible order. The ast fortnight has seen the commencement. fof the German air offensive against her chief enemy. The results of the engagements which have taken place, and the large number of casualties inflicted upon the German air force have proved distinctly encouraging, and must have left the German command fil content. There is every justification for the belief that the British air force can hold the enemy while the process of outstripping him numerically is proceeding, and that the time will come when the RAF. will have reached that strength, which added to the superb qualities of the men and their machines will bring to Britain command of the air, not only over Britain, but over the whole of Europe. Apart from that aspect of the speech there are other interesting features. The astonishingly small number of British casualties, considering what the BEF, wont through in Flanders and France, is gratifying as indirectly showing the complete success which the evacuation plans secured. To have extricated large forees with such comparatively small loss speaks volumes for the ability of the men in charge Of operations, and cannot but inspire the} highest confidence in eventual defeat of the enemy.
There is throughout Mr. Churchill's speech no attempt to minimize the dangers which the British Empire has already gone through trid those which it has still to face. It would have been idle for him to have atimpted to do so, and the manful fashion in which he has placed the whole situation before the country, refraining from palliating the unpleasant, cannot but have the fleet of maintaining and increasing that confidence in the man which eventually brought him to power amid general acclaim. 'Thus, when a man, so realistic as the Prime Minister, points tothe facts which give rise] to the quiet confidence which he himself ox-' presses, those who heard his words, and those, more vast in numbers, who have read them' will realize that in him there is no vain boasting,—a practice which can safe~ ly be left to. the enemy. Great Britain, far from bowing under the heavy blows] which Germany has struck, has stood up under them, proceeded quietly with the strengthening of her forces and resource and is today stronger in every respect th when she entered the war. Hitler on the) other hand lies sprawled over Europe, vul-norable in many ways when the time comes for Britain to assume the offensive, and faced with the difficulty of holding ' down sullen resentful peoples, who, when the time comes, will strike back at their oppressor. There' will undoubtedly bbe anxious times ahead.
The enemy in all probability has not yet shot hi last bolt, but the time will come when he will have done so, and so long as] the British carry on with that tenacity of purpose, which has carried them through $0. many dark days, there will be no question of whether they will win, but only when they will secure victory.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.