London, Oct. 8. lo-Japanese agreement to close the Burma Road would not renewed when the present agreement expires, announced the Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, in the course of a statement on the war situation in the' House of Commons today.
Cheerfulness and confidence was the keynote of the statement, in the course of which Mr. Churchill, in referring to the Dakar affair, said neither the First Sea Lord nor the Inner Cabinet was informed of the passage of French warships through the Straits of Gibraltar, This matter, he stated, was the subject'of disciplinary action.
The Prime Ministerfllso expressed doubt whether the Germans could greatly exceed their present visitations of 400 bombers daily. Up to last Saturday, he announced, air raid casualties totalled 8,500 killed and 13,000 wounded.
"A month has passed," declared Mr. Churchill "since Hitler turned his rage and malice on the civil population and our great cities. He declared he would raze our ities to the ground, and since then he has teen trying to! carry out his evil purpose. Naturally the first question we should ask is to what extent the full strength of the German bombing force lids been deployed.
"The best opinion I have been able to form on what is necessarily, to some extent, a matter of speculation is that, after their severe mauling on August 15, German short-range dive-bombers, of which there' are several hundred, have been kept carefully out of sight.
"This may be because they are being held'in reserve to play their part in the general plan of invasion, or to reappear on some other theatre of war."-We have, therefore, had to deal with long-range heavy German bombers alone. It would seem that, taking day and night together, nearly 400-of these machines have, on ah average, visited' our shores every 24 hours.
"We are doubtful whether this rate of sistained"attack could be greatly exceeded. No doubt concentrated efforts could be made for a few days dta time, but this would not sensibly affect the monthly average. Certainly there has been a tailing off in the Fast ter days, and during the month that passed since heavy raiding began we have had a steady decline in casualties and-in. dantage- to?&o-called vulnerable points,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.