Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 15 November 1941
Now They’re Talking
This has been Talk Week. Churchill, Hitler, Beaverbrook, Goebbels, Stalin, Roosevelt, their sound is gone out into all lands.
Hitler, from the Munich beer-garden, has wailed in a minor key, attempting to console Germans with Russian losses so frightful, fantastic, and fictitious that the mere childish attempt could only spread additional gloom. Goebbels was even less consolatory – there is no question of victory soon, the question is of victory at all.
Stalin, for all the real or supposed losses of the Russians, still sends out a ringing note of defiance, and assails Hitler with an invective that makes a stirring antiphon to our own Churchill’s. “Germany must eventually collapse under the weight of its crimes.”
President Roosevelt in an Armistice Day message has reminded Americans who grumble that Prussia was fought in vain, that freedom and democracy are always worth fighting for, that they are worth fighting for always unceasingly and unrelentingly. He reminded them of the unhappy fate of the French who for one tragic hour lost heart, faith, and courage, and decided that freedom was not worth fighting and dying for. When they came to themselves it was too late—they were fast bound in misery and iron. That is the fate which is being prepared for America by its isolationists.
Mr. Churchill during the last few days has made notable speeches in Hull, in Sheffield, at the Lord Mayor’s war-time “banquet,” and finally at the old stand. To the citizens of Hull and Sheffield he brought comfort and encouragement amid their ruins. To Hull: “I am sure that at the end all will be well for us in our island.” To Sheffield: “We have only to hold together to go safely through the dark valley and then .we will see if we can make something lasting of – our victory.” To the City of London he spoke in thrilling tones of the great turn in the tide of events. One was reminded of the youthful Churchill of the days of the Liberal triumph of 1906 and his exultant cry, “The flowing tide is with us!” Even then he was a great phrasemaker, but to-day he is the Man produced by the Hour, and his genius has ennobled and enriched his eloquence so that it matches even this mighty crisis in the history of the world.
One sensed his cheerful confidence in the bold challenge to Japan, the clear warning that we shall range ourselves instantly beside the United States against any new manifestation of the Yellow Peril. His reference to our improved naval situation and to the presence in the Pacific of a powerful squadron was intended no doubt to prevent rather than to provoke war with Japan, but the Japanese were left in no uncertainty about Britain’s readiness to fight rather than suffer an Asiatic counterpart of Hitlerism.
The insolent demands of the Japanese upon the United States “adding up” as the Americans say to evacuation and surrender of American interests in the Far East and the Pacific can receive only one reply. The fact that they are put forward at all is symptomatic of the recklessness and desperation of the war party in Japan. Mr. Churchill’s enumeration of the truly enormous odds against Japan, in any struggle with the United States and the British Empire, to say nothing of the U.S.S.R., may have a salutary effect, especially if the German offensive in Russia freezes. At any rate Japan has been warned against rushing upon its fate. Its present rulers are marked as wholly committed to a policy of violence, aggression plunder, and enslavement: they are willing pupils of Hitler and will share his fate. If they are condemned and cast out by their own people, so much the better for the Japanese, but the day of liberation is coming for China as for all invaded, outraged and oppressed nations, and in that day execution will be done upon the butcher birds and vultures, the hyenas and jackals alike of the rogue races and the raped nations.