"We shall do our best o meet them jand fight them wherever they go, but there is one thing which jeertain, there is one thing which Fises out of the vast welter which is sure and which no one in his senses jean mistake, Hitler cannot find safety from- avenging justice in the East, the Middle East or the Far East! In order to win this war he must either conquer this island by invasion or he must cut the ocean lifeline which joins us to the United States.
"When I compare the position home as it is today with what it was the summer of last year, even fatter making allowances "for" much [mechanical preparation on the part sot the enemy, T feel that we have very. much to' be thankful for, and believe that provided our exertions Jand vigilance are not relaxed even for a moment. we shall give a very good account of ourselves, More than that it would be boastful to say. Less than that it would be foolish to believe.
"But how about our lifeline across the Atlantic? What is to happen if so many of our merchant ships are sunk that we cannot bring in the food we need to nourish our people 'What if supplies of war materials and war weapons which the United States is cocking to send us in Jonormous quantities should, in large parts, be sunk on the way?' What is to happen then?"
In February "that bad man" Hitler, ju one of his raging outbursts, continued "Mr. Churchill, threatened Britain with an intensification of [U-boat and air activity, "We have taken, and are taking, all possible measures to meet. this attack, And we are now fighting against it, with might and main, That is what is called the Battle of ithe Atlantic, which, in order to survive, we have to win, and just as decisively as we had'to win the Battle of Britain last August and [September in the alt,"
Britons would therefore, be able concentrate their forces' upon the task nearer home and to take a far heavier toll of U-boats, The President and Congress of the Unitea States, the Prime Minister Jproceeded, lad solemnly pledged their aid to Britain in this war because they deemed its cause just, and knew that their own interests would be endangered if Britain were to be 'They were taxing themselves, heavily, and had turned a large part of their gigantic industry to making, ammunition which Britain needed, They had even given Britain valu-fable weapons of' their own, Mr, Churchill said he could not believe thay they would allow the high purposes to which they hag set themselves to be frustrated, and the products of their factories sent to the bottom of the ser Merciless. Murder U-boat warfare as conducted by Germany, he said, was in direct contradiction, to international agree ments subscribed to by Germany only few years ago, There was no effec~ tive Blockade "but only mexeiless murder and marauding of a wild and character." utterly control of German sea ye strong conviction that though the Battle of the Atlantic will be long and hard, and its issue is by no means yet determined, it has entered upon a more grim but Jat the same time a far more favour Jable phase, When you come to think of it, the JUnited States are very closely bound up with us now and have engaged themeclves in giving moral, material jand, in the limits T have mentioned, naval support, "No one can doubt that the event= inal and total defeat of Hitler and Mussolini is certain in view of the. respective declared resolves of the British and American Democractes, 'There are less than 70,000,000 malignant Huns, some of whom are Jcurable, and most of whom are Jalready' engogedy in holding down /Austratians, Czechs and many ancient races, "The peoples of the British Empire Jand of the United Stated number nearly 200,000,000 in theft homelands jand in the British Dominions alone, They possess the unchallengeable command of the ocean, and will soon Jobtain decisive superiority in the alr, They have more wealth, more technical resources and make more steel than the whole of the rest of the Tribute to Merchant Marine The Prime Minister then paid a tribute to the officers and men of the merchant navy, "who go out in all Jweathers and in the face of all "When we think how easy it is to sink ships at sea and how hard it Is to bulld them and to float them, and when we remember that we have never had less than 2,000 ships afloat and 300 or 400 in the danger zone, when we think of the great Jarmies we are maintaining and rejigforeing in the Middle East, and in, the worldwide trame we have to carry on, when you remember all this," declared Mr, Churchill, then you' will know why it is that the Battle of the Atlantic holds the first place in the hearts of those upon whom devolves the responsibility for Tt was, therefore, with indeseriblable relief that Britons learned of the tremendous decision lately taken by the President and people of the United States, he went on. The! American Fleet and flying-boats have teen ordered to patrol the wide waters of the Western Hemisphere, and to protect the peaceful shipping of all nations, "They are determined that the lease "of freedom shall not be trampled down nor the tide of world progress turned backwards by the [criminal dictators, "While, therefore, we must naturally view with sorrow and anxiety much that is happening in Europe and Africa, and may happen in Asia, we must not lose our sense of proportion jand thus become discouraged or alarmed, We must face with a steady Jeye the' dimeulties which are before lus, We may derive new confidence by' remembering what we have already overcome, Nothing that is happening now in the east is comparable in gravity with the dangers through which we-passed last year, The last time I spoke to you Jquoted lines of Longfellow which President Roosevelt had written to me in his own hand, I have some Jother tines which are well known and which seem appropriate to our fortunes tonight, and T believe that they will be so judged wherever the English language is spoken or the flag of freedom fiies;—
"'And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in "the Tights Ju front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, "took, the land
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.