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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1942-08-20, Page 6JAP MBER—ALL BROKEN Big Jap bomber, its fuselage almost entirely demolished, was brought down by U. S. anti-aircraft *re in Battle of Coral Sea. (Official U. S. Navy photo from NEA.) VOICE OF THE PRESS DON'T CASH THEM IN The volume of certificates turn - set in would seem to indicatethat many people have been cashing in Meir certificates for reasons not altogether serious. The desire for a3 mew coat or suit or a vacation e not an adequate excuse for re- eaming war savings certificates. "pVcry certificate redeemed makes t just a little harder for the vernment to finance our war effort and it makes the operation cif the war effort more expen- dee. To handle the redemption item has been going on requires the services of a large number elerks whose work is a dead leas as far as winning the war is *esteemed. —Winnipeg Free Press -o— HOME-GROWN VEGETABLES The entire British supply of green vegetables is now being grown in the United Kingdom. Remembering that before the war about 1,000,000 tons of such vegetables were imported each h�ocaar, we can measure the war- time development of British agri- eulture, which has also increased its production of cereals by 50 per cent. and that of potatoes by 70 per cent. —Brockville Recorder and Times —o— EXTINGUISHING BOMBS Playing a jet of water on an Incendiary bomb has now been found to be the best way of ex- tinguishing it. There are still, 'owever, the people who deal Faith the matter by saying, "Bosh! It can't happen here," end then going out for a nice long ride in the car. —Windsor Star --o— NEW COINS NEEDED Since soft drinks now cost seven cents and chocolate bars eta, how about the minister of finance ordering the minting of eevon-cent and six -cent pieces? As It is now, so many coppers in change are jeopardizing the War- time Prices and Trade Board's efforts along the line of pants- poeket conservation. —Brantford Expositor EASILY SATISFIED The Nazi mind ie fairly illus- trated by the German officer who when he was captured by the Re -miens declared: "It's all the same to me whom we fight. It las war itself that satisfies me." —Stratford Beacon -Herald —0— KNOWS HIS STUFF The columnist who said it wasn't real summer until the ®'!}air came up when you did, knew something about the humid- ity around this locality. —St. Thomas Times -Journal U. S. Broadcasts Encourage Danes Specially -directed short wave broadcasts from the United States are being heard by 80,000 people in Denmark, it was revealed by a ish announcer -writer of the foreign language division of an American broadcasting company. He is on an unofficial visit dur- ing which he visited Little Nor- way camp of the Royal Nor- wegian Air Force. The broadcasting representa- tive, who did not wish his identity ieovealed because of his family skill in Nazi -controlled Denmark, said his land was only one of nany hearing broadcasts sent out daily in more than a dozen lang- •tnages. The broadcasts give cour- age to millions who are ready to acid the Allies should the signal be given, and form the basis of secretly mimeographed newspap- ers, which, before the United States. entered the war, reached this side of the water regularly, be said. King Christian of Denmark has time texts of all broadcasts, taken down in shorthand, placed on his desk daily, he said. Liverpool's docks contain nearly forty miles of quays. fi ;(.RJ f AURICE ERWIN A Weekly Column About This and That in Our Canadian Army The present critical situation in India developed by progressive steeps following the inability of the mission headed by Sir Stafford Cripps to reach an agreement with Indian leaders last spring. The major milestones are listed by the •Christian Science Monitor as follows: The Cripps mission offered India Dominion status after the wax and a gradually expanding voice in the direction of its af- fairs during the period of hostili- ties. The proposal was rejected by all major groups. The All - India Congress Party asked full independence at once. The All - India Moslem League refused to agree to any plan which gave a proportional majority to the pre- dominately Hindu Congress Party and sought establishment of a separate Moslem state in North- ern India. Congress Party leaders contin- ued to agitate for immediate in- dependence as Japanese expanded their conquests in Asia. Late in July the Working Com- mittee of the Congress Party acted to bring the situation to a head by passing a resolution, drawn up by Mohandes K. Gand- hi, Balling for a civil disobedience campaign unless India's freedom was granted at once. The original draft of the reso- lution said the first move of an independent Indian government probably would be to negotiate with Japan. This remark later was edited out of the original. reaolution. The revised draft said a freed India would "wholeheart- edly and unreservedly declare it- self on the side of the United Nations, agreeing to meet Japan or any other aggressor with armed resistance." The British Government re- sponded by virtually accusing Mr. Gandhi and other Congress lead, ers with being appeasers of Japan, The Full Committee of the Congress Party met on Aug. 7 and passed a supplementary and preparatory resolution giving Mr. Gandhi full powers to lead a diso- bedience movement if a demand for freedom were rejected. At the same time Mr. Gandhi appealed to the United States to net "while there is yet time" to bring about Indian independence and permit Indians to "use their liberty in favor of the Allied cause." The following day the Pull Committee ratified by an over- whelming majority the Working Committee's revised resolution authorizing the disobedience move- ment. The British Government p.rompt- Iy countered by outlawing the Con. gress Party generally and arrest- ing Mr. Gandhi and some 200 other members of the Working Committee. Shortly after the arrests, dia- turbances developed in Bombay and other cities and police were forced to fire on demonstrators, Blow At Allied Cause In some Allied quarters the action of the Congress party seemed a major blow at the Allied cause, says the New York Times. Mr, Gandhi seemed ready to para- lyze India •or to plunge her into civil conflict at a time when the Japanese were at the country's gates in Burma, The farms, LIFE'S LIKE T!• SAT By Fred Neher "It's from the chief of police.... He requests your presence tomorrow morning at City Hall for illegal parking.... Dress is informal." mines, factories and Haan power o% the British Empire's greatest domain—a land almost as large, as the United States with three times the population—are vital to the defense of the Middle East. India is the great barrier to an overland junction of the German and Japanese armies. Across it runs the remaining Anglo-Ameri- can supply line to Free China. It lies on the flank of the Anglo- American supply line to Russia via the Persian Gulf and Iran. The justice of India's claim' to freedom was not questioned in Britain and the United States. It was realized that Mr,. Gandhi's, people had grievances: dating back through centuries of European ex- ploitation, and that 'redress was due. The timing of the demand, however, stirred doubts as to Mr. Gandhi's "sense of reality" and caused bitter critics to. charge him with imperiling the United Not - tions in one of the war's most credal theatres. • Gandhi's Argument The flare-up iri India's long fight for self-government has sprung from the advance of Japan. The 'Mikado's legions swept through Malaya, the East Indies and Burma; the native populations took hardly any port in their countries' defense, some factions even helping the invad- ers with fifth -column service. A similar situation might prevail in India if the Japanese entered. It is known that Nipponese agents have long promoted contacts with Indian revolutionaries and bom- barded India's masses with anti- British propaganda. The Cripps plan presented an attempt to win :full co-operation of the subcon- tinent's masses. It has been Mr. Gandhi's argument that the co- operation wanted by the Allies could never be achieved unless his country was entrusted with its own government and defense. Diverse India London's answer—supported by Washington—is that the issue is complex, that many interests must be considered, that freedom can- not be rushed through now with- out injustice and chaos in India, thereby leading to a fatal weak- ening of the Allied military posi- tion. It is held particularly that the Moslem minority—S0,000,000 in number, compared to 260,- 000,000 Hindus—will plunge the country into civil war rather than submit to Hindu administration. The British have declared that the Cripps proposal is their final word. Recently Secretary of State Cordell Hull addressed what many regarded as a warning to India's nationalists, He declared that post-war freedom could only be assured to peoples who showed themselves worthy of it. Civil disobedience campaigns of the past have included boycotts of British goods and services, resig- nation of Indians from public posts, withdrawal of children from schools, closing of shops. Despite their non-violent inten- tions, they have usually culmin- ated in bloodshed, rioting and ar- rests. The British indicated they were prepared to use force to leeep India's nationalists in line. They forbade the closing of shops on pain of fine and imprison- ment. Their army in the sub- continent numbers well over a million and it is composed largely of Moslems, who might not be sympathetic to a Hindu mass movement. Mr. Amery Confident Mr. Amery, Secretary for In- dia, declared in a broadcast that "prompt and firm action by the Government of India has, I be- lieve, saved India and the Allied cause from grave disaster." He expressed faith that the majority of "realistic" people in India are behind the Govern- ment's move to scotch "an at- tempt by blackmail and civil dis- turbance to make ordinary gov- ernment of India impossible .and to paralyze India's war effort." "No government could accept such a situation," Mr. Amery said. "The Government of India could not wait until the masses got ex- cited, until rioting and bloodshed began. It was necessary to cut off the current, to disconnect Gandhi and other leaders from their followers." In any case, Mr. Amery said, the present action "will not de- flect the Government from the broad purpose of providing India as soon as the war is over, with full opportunity under the consti- 'ISE WAR • WEEK — Commentary on Current Events War Effort Of United Nations Threatened By Crisis In India Yesterday en the street I met si tell, bronzed young man in civilian clothes. His free seemed familiar. He walked with his s}aoulders back and his head up, Re smiled at ine and, au-tomati- eally since I like miles, I re- turned the smile. Then I walked on puzzling slightly as to why the stranger had smiled. Suddenly it struck me. He was no stranger! He was the Com- pany Sergeant-Major! For two weeks we had been working to- gether, saluting each other when the occasion arose and comparing notes as to the condition of this recruit's fent, that one's appal- ' ling habit of drinkingice cold fizzy pop and eating iscuits in- stead of lining up for his meals like a soldier. But It emphasized two things: the difference wrought in a man by the clothes he wears; and the thin veneer that separates soldier from civilian. It is a good thing that the ven- eer is so thin. Because it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a sudden change from civil- ian to soldier may become neces- sary for many of ns, no, most of us! - I said last week that the Re- serve Army of today is very dif- ferent from the Militia of the "between -war" years. It is, and it mast be. It must have the support of every pian able to meet the physical requirements. Look at what a reserve army has done for Russia. That is what our Reserve Army must do for us. It will make demands — heavy demands — upon our spare time. it will call for two or three eve- nings a week for drill, training or special. instruction. It will call for ten Sundays. It will call for two weeks in camp every year, the whole totalling fifty-five days of training out of 365. And that, actually, is consider- ably less :time than the average citizen wastes on dancing, movies, ball games, hockey -matches and golf. A. mighty low -insurance prem- ium to pay, isn't it? • Not so long ago a man said to me quite seriously, "You people have no right to put alarming pieces in the paper about street - fighting in Halifax or Quebec or Montreal or Vancouver. That's alarmist stuff, it lowers morale," It made me boil. He has a "C" classification for his car. He squawks about his high income tax on earnings that are much greater than before the war and he has time and energy available for golf. But he couldn't, or wouldn't see the point when I suggested to him that if every -one in Russia had felt the sante way about it the Nazis would have been in Mos- cow a year ago! We've really got to put our backs into this war. Knitting a few socks or sweaters, or send- ing cigarettes overseas, or buying war savings regularly isn't enough, It has to be an all out effort! In Hong Kong young Canadians died. In England thousands of young Canadians are champing at the bit while they train for the job they volunteered to do. If it falls to us to defend the land they plan to come back to are we going to fail because the movies or the golf -links were more important? Even in the face of daily stories of repeated reverses on many fronts there still exist too many people who look upon the war as something that is going on "away tution to become a free dominion, as free as any nation could be." In his broadcast Mr. Amery said further that success of the Con- gress party campaign "would then mean the betrayal of China and of Russia." "It would mean the enslave- ment of India herself to the Ja- panese," he said. "That is what, in their reckless, irresponsible de- sire for party dominance, the Congress leaders are prepared to bring about." The Government, he said, had "abundant ground for punitive action," but had confined itself to preventive action. over there." Do they think "it esn't happen here"? For nearly three years we have been at war now, and in all that time "they haven't stepped on British soil," says your specialist in rose-eoloured glasses. He over- looks Hong Kong and Singapore! He doesn't want to take a ruler in his hand and compare the dis- tance between Japan and Malaya with the distance between Norway and Nova Scotia'. Try it yourself — appallingly, close, isn't it? That's why we members of the Individual Citi- zen's Army must play our part whether that part be volunteer- ing for Active Service, enlisting in the Reserve Army or just be- ing good soldiers behind the men behind the guns. Trained or not, if an invader set his foot upon Canadian soil: all of us—xnen, women and chil- dren would set out to do what we could — there's no doubt of that. Even the man who illegally in- creases rents, the shop -keeper who raises his prices above the ceiling, the sugar -hoarder, the gasoline cheat—even these would take up arras to defend their homes. Why, then, one is bound to wonder, must it be necessary for us to set up a Wartime Prices and Trade Board? What is it that makes war so remote that people like that must be brought into the courts every day to answer to charges of impeding the war effort? The most disheartening thought about it is that these offenders against regulations set up to pre- serve our economic structure are not only illiterate small traders— they include big corporations. Against them, and they are in- vaders of Canada don't forget, we need the private soldiers of the Individual Citizen's Army whose duty it is—for their own self- preservation—to send word of in- fractions of the price regulations to the nearest office of the War- time Prices and Tracie Board. Inflation is infiltration — we must be on our guard! Paratroop Corps To Train In U. S. Canada's new pal atro ops will train at a great military school in Georgia which extends over 150,- 000 acres of flat land, considered ideal geographically ad climati- cally for year-round manoeuvres and training programs. This post, to which the Cana - dies have been assigned until fa- cilities can be established for paratroop training in Canada, was developed in 1919 as an infantry school. Often termed the most com- plete army post in •the United States, it was the birthplace in 1940 of the American Arany para- chute troops. Their work was expanded so rapidly that in May this year a highly -specialized paratroop school was formed un- der command of Col. George P. Howell. The parachute course takes five weeks. American graduates of the post have a motto: "We ride to fight; why walk?" Farmers In Russia Save Much Grain A despatch to the government. newspaper Izvestia said that the battles south of Rostov were be-. ing fought on fields covered by grain stubble, indicating that collective farmers in the Cat cases had saved much of their crop despite the speed of the. German advance. In the Ordzhonikidze region, southeast of these battlefields and nearly 400 miles from Rostov, farmers were hastily gathering grain by hand and combine. From Moscow numerous civil- ians went out to -the woods to chop wood and dig peat for the. coming winter, and Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, said that self-sacrifice would be need-. ed to supply the nation in the coming winter. REG•'LAR FELLERS--Kitciny'I(iitchy l9Y+ POP BROUGHT ME 140ME THIS BIG,OF MARBLES LAS' NIGHT ® LET'S GET BEANO GOLDEN 1O S1T DOWN A 4'. KETCH EM Mk US WHILE'. VIE Pocria smocor Y. DON'T THINK &ANO ;"EELS VERY' MUGtl EIRE SITTIN' DOWN ON ACCOUNii OF AN E tPFRIMENT HE MADE! By GENE BYRNES HE TRIED TO FIND OUT IF HIS FATHER WAS TICKLISH WHILE HE WAS SFHAVIN.' m 4if ,.e, lye4 (• � • Fk77 r 'r. Rep. U, S. Pet. Office. 01 ,Ihtan Y"e"wNm