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VOICE OF THE PRE^SS THE OFFENSIVE WINS When Hannibal's armies were (it the very gates of Rome the Romans sent an expeditionary force against his homeland of Carthago. And Home won the war. When the infidel Turk threatened all Christendom, the West did not wait for him to come and conquer. The crusaders ad- vanced to the Golden Horn, de- feated the Turk and threw him out of Europe. At the first bat- tle ol* the Marne Koch despatched to the indecisive Jofl're this mes- sage: "My rixht is exposed, my left is heavily attacked, my cen- tre is unable to hold its position. I c: nnot redistribute my forces. The s.fjation is excellent. I shall attat-::." Kitchenei Kecord. o HE'S ONLY HUMAN To no (i nu more than to Gen. Do-t,iu .- a \iilnu- himself must many of these references to him see'., a bit overdone. He is a good soldier, a capable leuder who lias done a good job in the Philv.'ines, and; we hope, will lead the United Nations forces in the * acific to victory. But he's only human; he can't perform miracles. And putting him forth as a superman isn't fair to him or to tue caase. St. Thomas Times-Journal. WHY QUIBBLE? C.l.O. protests to the National War La'-. or Board that wage rates stt f"i shipyard workers at King- ston, Collingv.ood and Midland are lov. or than those in effect at Toronto and Port Arthur. And, by the same token, a bit better then those at Plymouth, where whcie night shifts have been rub- bed out while putting in 16 hours without overtime. Windsor Star. o PROPAGANDA "The dark moat of a chicken contains about twice as much vitamin B as the light meat." Slick bit of propaganda by father, who doesn't go for vitamins him- self, to make the rest of the fa- mily take a leg and lay off the breast. . Ottawa Citizen. o WIFE TORTURE Get appointed an air warden, and blow in at 3 a.m. with the announcement, "Sorry, dear thiit'.t military information." Winnipeg Tribune. o AND SHIRT TOO Peopie who think they can't get by without a two-trouser suit should give some thought to what it would feel liko if we had the pants beaten right off us. Ottawa Citizen. o TIMELY WARNING A Toronto baby ate her father'* gasoline coupons. He'd better watch hiii spare tire if any. Stratford Beacon-Herald. Predicts Drop In Britain's Population Great Britain will be populated by "old folks" after the war, ac- cording to Sir Henry Bracken- bury, writing in the British Medi- cal Journal. "Nothing can prevent this dur- ing the next thirty or forty years," Brackcnbury's article said. "Unlest effective measures can b* taken to increase the number of births and the size of families, similar result* will follow during the subsequent generation." It has been estimated that the total population of England und Wales will decline by 3,540,000 by :... British Call Planes By Fighting Names Wo truit it Is not unpatriotic say that in the matter of find- Ing good names for fighing planes the British have it all over us of the United States. According to newspaper accounts, General Knudnen arrived in Dei Moiiitts ' a "21 -passenger army trans- port." The Bume isHue carried a rtorjr about Lieut. E. H. O'Haie hooting down six Japunuaa bomb- m in his "fighter plane." Tho Hrltish, on the othor Iwnd, iutve given numoi to their plane types. Wti refer to one plane at Lockhcml P-38j the British call ft the "Lightning." A plane which wu call Consolidated H - I, they call "Liberator." They say "Oatalina" for our Consolidated PBY-o. A* (or British-made machines, who has failed to be thrilled by the mere Mound of Tornado, Whirlwind, Spitfire or Defiant! Must we bnttle for freedom and rights in Coniolldated VICHY LEGION: DISTINCTION OR EXTINCTION urn'OK* "'-*" PBY-baV 14 is prubalily small mat'.*f. but we should like 'Knockouts, "Cyclone*" and "Ktiglos" better. Moving along a frozen Kuasian plain, without benefit of appurtenances of modern war, a unit of the French Legion iigiUKig for Adolf Hitler on the Eastern Front pass a ruined homestead. They fight to win for France a place of distinction in the New Order, liquidation is proceeding. Churchill's Pre-War Rhetoric (A Syndicated Article in United States Newspapers, by Tom Treanor.) The political wolves are alter Mr. Churchill. Tlie accusations are being made that be hypnotized England with rhetoric and drugged her with phrases. I have no axe to grind for Mr. Churohlll. I have never met him, oor have I visited England since the war, nor am I a particular ad- mirer of the English. However, If England had per- mitted heroelf to be hypnotized by Mr. Churchill's rhetoric a little sooner, If she bad drugged herself with his phrases 10 years earlier, she would not be where she Is now. It Is obvious to anyone with a grain of sense that England's de- feats at Singapore, Crete, Norway and Dunkirk were not due to lack of planning by Mr. Churchill. They were due to England's fail- ure to take bis perfectly extra- ordinary warnings during the 10. years before he came- to power. He has only Inherited the vast load of failure against which he warned England BO vigorously year after year In the face of abuse and ridicule. It must make him laugh, If a man can laugh at a time like this, that he, Winston Churchill, Is be- ing blamed for the defeats. Those to blame have gone and In going they passed their load of failure on to this gallant old man who told them again and again what would happen. And it has happened with a ven- geance. Surely no reader believes for one instant that Mr. Churchill was so stupid that be did not think to protect Singapore with aircraft. Not the Air. Churchill who preached for 10 long lonely years the dominant role that aircraft would play In war. Not the Mr. Churchill who knew before any of us what aircraft meant. He didn't get aircraft to Singa- pore because he couldn't. He was too busy repairing the damage which his political enemies did many years ago when he had no power and when he was treated with cold disdain as au unwanted outsider. A he . said, during the past mouths ho has had Germany at his throat and Ita-ly at his belly. He was hard put not to lose North Africa. As be said, It took hltn four months to get a ship to Kgypt and back, carrying planes. How long would It take then to get them to Singapore? And where was he to get the ships? The longer the trip to Libya took, the fewer ships he had to pare for Singapore. As to the stupidities and the failure In the actual defence of Singapore, those are not Mr. Otvurchlll'e. Those are the inevit- able consequences of a hopeless situation. Demoralization precedes the cer- tainty of disgraceful defeat. I will give you a few samples of Mr. Churchill's "rhetoric," prior to the war. This word "rhetoric" was used by his detractors In the sense of hollow phrases. Hee how hollow this phrase Is: '"For all these reasons we we- ought to decide now to main- tain, at all costs, In the next It years, an air force aubstan- ttally stronger than Oermauy, and that It should be considered a high crime against the state, whatever government Is In pow- er, If that foroe It allowed, uven for a month, to fall uhstau- tlally below the potential fora* w'lloh may be possessed by that country abroad." For which, or for similar re m*rke, lie was attacked la this velu I. r bis eipouenti: "He comes forward," said Mr. Herbert Samuel, "and tells th na- tion that we ought straightaway to double "and redouble our air force four times aa big as wu have now . . . That I* rather the lang- uage of a Malay running amok than of a responsible British states- man. It la rather the language of blind and causeless panic." And they are blaming Cburch- 111 that Singapore didn't have en- ough airplanes! Both these statements, Church- Ill's and Samuel's, were made In 1934. And is the following- the sort of phrase that would drug the Bri- tish? "We are a rich and easy prey. No country Is so vulnerable and no country would better repay pillage than our own. With our enormous metropolis here, the greatest target In the world, a kind of tremendous, fat, val- uable cow tied up to attract a beast of prey, we are in a posi- tion In which we have never been before, In which no other country in the world -is at the present time." That was also In 19:11. He was accused of being caught unaware. But It wasn't unaware that he was caught. He was caught helpless to act because iu "the years that the locust hath eaten" his political adversaries beat him back. Does the following sound like a man who would be caulit nap- ping? "beware, Germany Is a country fertilo In military surprises. The great Napoleon In the years after Jena, was completely taken by surprise by the strength of the German army which fought the War of Liberation. Although he had officers all over the place, the German army which fought in the campaign of Leipzig ws three or four times as strung as ha expected. Similarly, when the Great War hroke out the French general staff had no idea of the reserve divisions which would be brought Immediately into the field. They expected to be con- fronted by 25 army corps; ac- tually more than 40 came against tiii-iii. It Is never advisable to underrate thu military qualities of this resourceful and gifted people, nor to underrate the dangers that may be brought against us." This was In 1935. In the same speech he said: "The Lord President asked me and us all not to Indulge In panic. I hope we shall not In- dulge In panic. But I wish to say this: It Is very much belter sometimes to have a panic be- forehand and then to be quite calm when things happen, than to be extremely calm beforehand and to get in a panic when things happen. Nothing has sur- prised me more than I will not say the Indifference, but the coolness with which the com- mittee has treated the extraor- dinary revelations of the Ger- man air strength relative to our country. For the first time for centuries we are not fully equip- ped to re-pel or retaliate for an Invasion. That to an Island peo- ple Is astonishing. Punic Indeed! The position Is the other way round, We are the Incredulous, Indltterunt children of centuries of security behind the shield of the Royal Navy, not yet able to wake up to the woefully transformed conditions of the modern world." The only great failure of Mr. Ohurohlll WHS his inability to drive ilu.au thoughts through a lot of thick skuiii our own homegrown i.uiis among the thickest. ATLANTIC CONVOY By LIEUT. E. H. BARTLETT, R.C.N.V.R. They are "Convoy Commo- dores," in whose ranks are ad- mirals who once commanded battle fleets in the Seven Seas. To-day they command fleets of comparatively slow, lumbering merchant ships. Their years' of sea experience made them invaluable when war broke out, and the call to service once more brought them gladly from retirement to serve afloat again. Time and again they take their fleets through the danger 'areas. They sail in merchant ships but they get their share of gunfire and of action; know what it is to see their fighting escorts seek out and engage the enemy; and know, too, the responsibility of man- oeuvring fleets in battle again this time the Battle of the At- lantic. They have no staff officers. A few naval signalmen now com- pose their "staff," just enough men to maintain constant signal service to the rest of the fleets from the merchant ships which bear the commodores. Their quarters are generally cramped, sometimes uncomfortable but the commodores who once paced their Admiral's Walk, ignore their changed roles as they glory in their active participation in the war at sea. There were three such com- modores in the mammoth fleet which this writer accompanied, in an escorting Koyal Canadian Navy corvette, to sea. Three commo- dores, for at a certain point the fleet was to divide into separate convoys, each bound for their own ports in the war areas. Naval terms followed the com- modores into the merchant fleet. There was the senior commodore, whose .ship was to take the head of the line when the fleet set sail He had his Vice-Commodore ana the Ilear-Commodore, each to lead his own division. Their badges of rank showed no differentiation. Each, on his sleeves, bore the broad gold ring of commodore's rank in the Navy. Above the ring was the small circle of criss-crossed braid which denoted the convoy appointments. In the Navy they would have worn the regulation "executive curl" of straight lace. The criss-crossed lace, the same as that used by the Naval Reserve, pave them yet an- other link with the merchant ser- vice in which they now sail. The commodore was himself of the Naval Reserve, had command- ed liners in peace-time and war- ships in conflict. In the last war he "bajrrreri" a submarine, but dis- claims any special merit in the feat. "Just chased her into a mine- field, you know," he explains, with a rather diffident smile. "Heard her blow up, and that's all there was to it. Only prob- lem was not to (jot too close to the mines ourselves, tricky things they are." It is on record that he "bailed" two submarines this war, before he was transferred from his fighting ship to sail with the merchant fleets. But of these two he tells nothinir, as is flic way of the Silent Service. When it comes to talking of the merchant ship captains, then it is a different matter. He holds them in the highest esteem, and does not hesitate to say so. There is a Norwegian captain for whom he has an especially high regard. He tells of how this captain, in a tanker full of fuel oil, kept his ship in line although two torpedoes had struck home. One, hitting amidships, had set her afire. The other, hitting her stern, should have but did not send her to the bottom. An es- cort ship stood and helped the tanker fight her fire, and then escorted her as she struggled back into position in. the convoy. "I signalled to find out whether the tanker could keep up," the commodore recalls, "and was told that she could, but she 'couldn't stand any weather.' I should jolly well think she could not. Why, her bulkheads were going one by one and I don't know how she managed even to reach port." "You know," he added, "that captain must have been very much of a man. His ship was spreading a slick of oil trom her leaking tanks, and he signalled me to ask if he should leave the convoy a he was afraid the oil would give away our position to the submar- ines. Of course, 1 refused to let him go, he would have been sunk as sure as fate if he had left our protection. But just think of it two torpedoes already and he was ready to go off and commit suicide in order not to bring danger to us." The convoy commodore could see how the Norwegian captain "was quite a man." He did not seem to think that his own decis- ion to keep the ship under his protection in itself told a tale! He has a sense of humour which, however, rather deserted him one day when, having brought through a large convoy which had been under incessant attack, and which had seen eight ships tor- pedoed, five of which had been sunk, he was ordered to Gibraltar. He told his wife, vaguely, the general direction in which his new duties would take him. "You know," he says, "she said to me 'well, it looks as if you will be in the thick of it, now.' " " 'In the thick of it" ", he re- peated, "wonder what she thought that last convoy was?" With his sense of humour is an understanding of his fellow-men which makes him many friends. We escorted him to his ship, a stub-nosed cargo-carrier whose captain was waiting at the top of the gangway to receive him. There were no shrilling pipes or sideboys in ceremonial salute. Instead there was the greeting of two friends, a broadly smiling welcome from the ship's captain, and a firm hand-shake. "Not s very comfortable bunk for you, commodore," the captain warned. "Don't worry, old man, I never take luy cloihes oil on this job anyway," was the reply. "Let'i jasv get on with it." His signalmen made their way to the bnugc, and a liaghoiat rose on the halliards. The captain ga.e a brusque order or two, and the anchor windlass clanked into- action. In a mutter of minutes the ship was under weigh the commodore and his fleet were "getting on with it." The Vice and liear Commodore* were similarly engaged. The Vice (he had been an admiral) was rather proud of the fact that he had "drawn" an oil tanker for his Atlantic crossing. "iiost comfortable ships these, you Know" he had drawled. "Very good accommodation, it's a pleas- ure to sail in 'em." "liost comfortable" "good ac- commodation" yes, but his Sig- nalmen tell, too, that their "old man" doesn't take his clothes off when he seeks his bunk or sc-tco for his sleep. At any minute of the day or night he is ready for instant action, which is another good naval trait. They are "too old" to command fighting ships, now, but still they take their ships into the fight. Once they hoisted their flags in mammoth battleships, and direct- ed fleets of fighting craft. Now they are pleased when they "draw" a tanker, and their skill is bent toward shepherding lum- bering cargo carriers. And, in the experience they gained in lighting ships, and the skill they have brought to direct- ing merchant ships, lie one of the reasons why the convoys are "get- ting through." Which is all these commodores, who once were ad:nirals, ask. Red Rains Follow Raging Dust Storm* When dust storms have been raging in Australia'* dust bowl, which takes in most of the iniand area, red rain ' is common rain which falls through the dust pall overhanging the country. When a really big storm blows up inland, 11,OGO,OUU tons of valu- able top soil is swept into the, air, experts estimate. Some of it comes down on the coast, some settles in the Tasman Sea and helps to thicken the red sediment which coats part of tin. seabed there, while some carries on and paints a pink tinge on the snow of the New Zealand Alps. Wind erosion has affected 10,- 000,000 acres of Victoria alone. The State Rivers Commission spends 100,000 a year on clear- ing sand out of its irrigation channels, trains are derailed and roads covered. But the dust goes on piling up. Loss of product- ivity is estimated at 500,000 a year. LIFE'S LIKE THAT By Fred Neher honor REG'LAR FELLERS -The Gadders 1 want divorce, alimony ami a return boutl By GENE BYRNES