oF two ago in one of the morning papers there was a good letter from an American. living in England. He said that he refused to take his Embassy's advice to leave: this country, and then went on: "Americans leaving England at this critical time are deserting their own cause—Freedom and Liberty. The American frontier is the English Channel."
Well, that is what one American says. For my part, though T agree with him, 1 would put it a bit differently. 1 would say that this, is not_a war in the old sense at all. It is not a quarrel between certain nations. It is not a matter of frontiers or possessions. is a desperate battle—in which the whole future of the world is involved—belween two ways of life. We don't say that one of them, ours, is perfect. We know very well it is not.' In fact some of us have spent a lot of cour time these last few years criticizing the sort of life we were leading. But at least Ht was worth criticizing, Left to ourselves we could improve it, as we were improving. it all the time, to give every man, woman and child a chance to lead a full, useful and happy existence. But the other kind of life, which has spread like a foul stain over half Europe, is simply evil. It is not German. There is not a great German of the past who would not have indignantly Yefused to have any part in it, just as those rear Germans of today have all turned their backs on it and are now in exile. It is simply a gigantic insane gangsterism, a vast power machine built for nothing but brutal conquest. You cannot come to terms with it, There is no living peacefully alongside it, because it has no intention of living peacefully itself or of allowing you to live at peace. It is no more simply European than typhoid fever is simply European; and, like a plague, if it is not stopped here, then it will spread all over the world.
But of course it isn't going to be allowed to spread. Here at home we are at la: and of course as usual it is "at last"—going into strict training for the big fight. In my opinion, for what it is worth, we have probably done more to make ourselves veal~ fit and ready in the last few weeks than we did in the previous eight months. One reason for the delay is that you cannot per sunda a lot of the English that they don't hive on a magic island. They believe, these nice comfortable stupid folk, that disasters and tragedies, fire and slaughter, treachery and invasion,' are things that only happen over the sea, to those strange excitable be~ ings called "foreigners." I is only a month or two ayo that the girl who works in our kitchen said quite solemnly: "Does this man Hitler realize what trouble and expense he's putting us to?" The answer is that he does, and likes it, But that was the attitude of mind of many of the English up to a few weeks ago. But now that is gone. Not only becatise the war has been brought nearer there shores, but also, 1 think, because the people feel that this new government of Ours means business, that its leaders "are determined vital men, There is none of that sleepy complacency any more The temper of the ordinary easy-yoing English folk is sising. Any attempt at invasion will only send it up a few more degrees, I have not met anybody yet who' is, particularly worried about it. Natually when your whole world changes so rapidly, it is not easy to make the necessary adjust= ments. I know it is tough going tying to an author these days, for you "cannot settle down to write a book; ihe theatres are closing, not because people are afraid to go to them but partly because they want to listen to the news at night and partly Decutise they like to get a bit of fresh air iter a Tong day indoors; even journalism has been cut down. But T for one am in better trim physically than T was a year' ago: Iam no worse mentally; and it "will certainly do me no harm to take my turn on the downs watching the searchlights sweeping the cky and look: ng cut for para~ chute troops. J only hope they don't come Gown in on part all dressed as clergymen, Lecause T have a feeling our chaps ave going.
very esbarcassed chasing ever Glergyman they. see.
All this business is the most tragic thing that has ever happened to us—it seems tar more tragic 10 me than the last wary though T was only. young then and a soldier it, you find yourself there is a of of absurdity vent, there always Wil be in tis absurd, eva and lovable slond. of urs. And that is something. the Germans ill never don't understand us when We laugh, they don't understand us when ure serious. And they won't learn.
never But there is a strong about read it not in the news wwers bur in the iaecs of all the folks I sec, and Tear it in ther voices—that vei they will be taught one or nave moL quite understood yer. to do it with more patience; for patience. like truth-telling and kindness, are civilized virtues.
Hitler is now saying that to suppose he has any designs on the new world is absurd and grotesque. By this time, you and T ought to have realized that once Hitler has said a thing like that, his mind is really moving in the opposite direction. He told us that he had no designs on Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and where are they now? Under' the iron boots' of the storm troopers and the Gestapo. A great. many people in the New World are now Fepeating the mistakes that we made 2 year ago—you are imagining that you can stop Hiller by holding a meeting and passing resolution to say you don't approve of him. As if he cared! Why, nobody ever approved of him, He has raised himself to this stupendous altitude of power on this kind of woolly, well-meaning, ineffectual disapproval, Well, we are long past that here now. We have made our usual mistakes. We have been too complacent; we have underestimated the enormous preparation and ruthlessness of the enemy; we have depended 100] long on a gentlemanly slow-motion civil service system, which could not key up our war industries to the proper pitch. But now that has gone. The real English people, not a small ruling class, are taking charge, led by men like Bevin, Morrison, Greenwood. We are producing planes and munitions at rate that far exceeds anything ever known before in this island. The pace is becoming terrific. And nothing Hitler can do, short of overrunning the whole country, can stop it T pin my faith—and this is no idle rhetorical statement, but an expr of all T believe and act upon—on the courage and skill and endurance of the ordinary English people, on the men who designed and made the Hurricanes and Spitfires and Boulton Defiants, on the young men who fy them and think nothing of taking on half-a-dozen enemy machines at once, on the soldiers who fought their way back yard by yard against overwhelming odds to Dunkirk, on the men on the Clyde and the Tyne who build the great ships and the sailors who have never failed our trust in them in every quarter of the world. These people are going to fight, tooth and nail. The issue is plain. We simply can't live with Nazism. Either we destroy it or it destroys us. And I don't believe it can destroy us. We have behind the resources of a vast empire. While Hitler is throwing into the battle everything he has got, we are only just getting into our stride. Nobody is going to pretend it will be easy, for you cannot defy the most enormous and devilish mechanism of destruction the world has ever seen and expect to be on velvet. We realize that now. It's not a pretty prospect. A lot of us may be maimed dead very soon, but it can't be helped. We shall go on and on until we break their black hearts. Whatever the Nazis may say this is still an island.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.