The wisdom of those who foresaw early in the war the need for turning India into an Empire arsenal is now bearing fruit. Weapons of all kinds except the heaviest, munitions, clothes and textiles are being turned out in quantities which are growing every week as new factories open up and workers are trained. Markets which were once supplied by Japan are now being supplied from India. Most of these markets are within the sterling bloc, around which a barrier of exchange regulations has been raised which makes extensive purchases outside of it next door to impossible. Thus India is gaining an advantage which will probably have a permanent benefit upon her internal economy, once this war is won. For India's chief trouble has always been poverty. Should India become a centre for the supply of manufactured goods in the area between Port Sudan in the west and Hongkong in the cast, this handicap of poverty should gradually be overcome, and a new era of prosperity should dawn for the three hundred and fifty millions of India's inhabitants. In the meantime the contribution which is being made to the general war effort of the British Commonwealth is increasing. Should the Germans succeed in attaining their aim of closing the eastern Mediterranean—a he clean task upon which they have now embarked, but in which they have met only slight success so far—India's position as a centre of supply would be invaluable.
It is not only in the matter of supplies that India's contribution has proved so valuable. Men have been given freely for the good of the cause, and that right from the beginning of the struggle. It will not be forgotten that among the troops evacuated in the retreat to Dunkirk were an Indian transport corps, who were heart-broken because they were unable to evacuate their extremely tough and reliable little mules along with them. This corps had been in France for some months before the German invasion of Holland and Belgium precipitated the collapse of Allied resistance on that part of the Continent. Indian troops were among those who made the Italian advance and capture of British Somaliland a costly business for so useless a gain. And it seems to be only right that the same Indians should have taker: part in the recapture of Berbera. the capito: of that colony, when the time came for the British to advance in their turn against the Italians. In the later fighting, Indian troops showed conspicuous gallantry in the opening drive on Sidi Barrani, which was the spearhead of the great attack made by General Wavell and which carried the Imperial forces beyond Benghazi. After this attack the Indians were sent to the frontier of Abyssinia, where they took part splendidly in the capture of Kassala, and the subsequent advance into Eritrea which culminated in the great victory of Keren. Throughout all these operations Indian troops have covered themselves with glory.
The attempts of the egregious Mussolini to win support from the Moslems of India and Asia Minor by his proclamation of himself as the "Defender of Islam" have drawn from the Indians only cynical smiles. And the much more skilful efforts of the Nazis to sow dissensions in Iraq, which met with a tempora ary success in the coup staged by Raschid Ah and interference by these Iraqi rebels with the Mosul oil fields, have resulted in a chorus of denunciation from Indian leaders of all religions and races. Though there are differences of opinion on the Indian home front over the Empire's decision to postpone action on independence until the war has been won, the overwhelming majority of the people realise that the freedom they enj ioday is preferable to the certain slavery they would have to endure were Naziism to be victorious. The Indian soldier is fighting, the Indian navy is patrolling the seas, workers in every type of factory are putting out the utmost possible, not only in loyalty to the King-Emperor, but also because the Nazis have made it plain in their propaganda and in the speeches of their hot-heads that the s of the world need expect no conation from them, should they succeed in realising their dream of world empire. Shanghai has an intimate stake in India's war effort, it is proud to know, since Britons for the fighting forces and for the technical services have been bridging the distance between this city and Calcutta, to "do thei bit" at the side of their Indian follo subjects.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.