Within the next few days the war will have lasted five months, and there are me ications that the stagnation on land, which thas been one of the principal features of the hostilities, will come to an end, by action taken by one side or the other." In Britain it is to be noted that there is a certain section of public opinion which demands rather more action than has been seen up to the present, while even in Germany there is much. of the same sort of feeling displayed, 'Mr. Winston Churchill, in his speech at Manchester on Saturday, is reported to have said that the day would' come when Herr Hitler would be wondering on which occasion he would be struck next, and this is now taken as the first time'a British statesman has announced that the war of expectancy would soon be over. From that it is to be deduced that during the past five months the perfecting of the Allied fighting machine has progressed so rapidly that very shortly they would be ready to embark on greater, and perhaps more important activities. Yet in the same speech the First Lord makes it clear that an even greater expansion of all forms of activity is being contemplated, and that the time is not far distant when the whole life of the British nation and Empire will be consecrated to the successful conclusion of this present struggle, The Ger= man machine which has been working at wartime speed for the past three years: is reported to be incapable of much expansion now, having long ago. reached "its peak while the Allies have still plenty of margin in hand for the attainment of even greater results than have up to the present been secured, and there is every reason to be-Move that the resort to greater military activity will not occur until the Allies are In 2 position to meet every demand which the outbreak of actual fighting on land will make, It will be remembered that there were occasions during the last war when the exigencies of fighting made demands upon the supply of munitions, etc,, which could not for a time be met, and that movements which should have been successful were held up for lack of material at the critical moment, 'Those' experiences have not been wasted, and the lesson has been thoroughly well earned that the fabrication of all the neces saries for carrying out an active military campaign must be at a rate capable of Alling 1 requirements and obviating occasional shortages. The work of accelerating the Allied industrial machine to the tempo of war is by no means an easy task, and it is jelear from what Mr. Churchill has said that much more will have to be done, so many more men and"women absorbed' into the manufacture of war material that whatever offensive may be contemplated by the Allies will probably have to wait some time yet. What is s0 amazing is that Herr Hitler has held his hand so long. All ideas of a Blitzkrieg appear to have been abandoned, chiefly because now there can be no such thing against the Allies, The clement of surprise can no longer exist, save perhaps as to where the Nazis will strike if indeed they intend to do so. If they do they will find the Allies"in a state of preparedness, which has only been made possible by the hesitancy of the Reich to assume the often sive, and every day that passes without that being done is Just one more favourable day fo the Allies in their task of preparing for all emergencies. If Herr Hitler himself doos not realize it, his commanders do, that an offensive against the Maginot Line will prove an expensive matter, so expensive that suc cess in breaching it'may be so costly as to deprive the Reich of whatever slender hopes of victory it might have had. That appears to be equally true of the prospects of the Allies attacking, and breaking through the Siegfried Line, but while it is no part of their policy to infringe the territorial integrity of neighbouring neutrals, the con-Sinued strangulation of Germany's economic life through the blockade makes it more necessary for Herr Hitler to seek an carly decision' than it does for the Allies. With Europe in the grip of a cold wave such as has not been witnessed for many decades past there is little "chance of the war veloping into greater action in the immediate future, and it is apparent that neither side will be anxious to assume the initiative unfit climatic conditions are far more favourable to it than they are at present.
It may readily be assumed that, before an attempt is made to embark upon a war of movement, the struggle for the mastery of the air will have to be decided. The fact that Herr Hitler did not carry out his often professed intention of bombing the Allies from the alr has caused no small amount of wonder. It was part of the scheme employed against Poland, and would seem to be the best means of opening hostilities against the Allies. It has not been adopted against them because they are in a better position to retaliate than ever the Poles were, That power of retaliation is growing speedily day by day, and in all probability it is the knowledge that the Allies are able to inflict just the same destruction upon the military objectives behind the German lines as he is able to do behind the Allies' that he has up to the present held his hand. There will not be much support amongst the Allies for the contentions of such men as Messrs.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.