Britain's Friends In
A few weeks ago
I returned from Morocco, regretfully leaving without having had the oppor tunity of saying Goodbye to any of my long-standing friends who are also the friends of Britain. My return was precipitated by the capitulation of the French Gov- ernment.
Morocco
Balkan rumours of like- ly German intervention in the war against Greece swing between the mass-
Morocco, or, as it is called in Arabic, "Mogreb-Elaksa," "The ing of troops on the Rum- Land of the Setting Sun," has been able to maintain at a high stand- antan border for a dash my home for 25 years.
through Bulgaria into I knew it first as a land of my- stery and charm. It had no mo- Thrace and the deploy-dern communications, no roads, no ment of troops for forcing A quarter of
electricity, no European amenities. a century of close a passage through Yugo- collaboration between the Sheri- fan government officials, and the slavia into Albania and French colonising administrators thence to Greece.
has resulted in a remarkable de- velopment, which in recent years For the moment, how-contentment to the merchants of had been bringing prosperity and ever, all such rumours the cities and to the fellahs of should be treated with the
the countryside. same reserve as it is es- Large schemes of irrigation have sential to
under cultivation brought maintain re- garding the exaggerated accounts of brilliant Greek successes against the Italian invaders.
land!
that has been unproductive for j centuries. With continued de- velopment, the land should be
}
By Albera Fallaize,
Enlish
missionary In Marooco for 25 years, and noted student of Moroccan affairs.
ard of living a population two or three times its present number.
chase a small piece of land in an | old city of Morocco, I was received by a proprietor, who was a com plete stranger, and was given generous terms. When the busi
ness had been satisfactorily settled and the lawyers had written the England and with all British people, and progress has left un papers we were enjoying the hos spoilt their genuine spirit of hospitality of our host. He recounted pitality and charming friend his story. Ilness.
I look back with pleasurablé memories to the generous hospita- lity of large homes in the cities, and to the simple dwellers in Arab tents who shared all they had, and gave no less generously out of their poverty to a wayfaring stranger who was to them "Daif Allah," "the Guest of God."
Remembered Friendship
this
Some little incidents of The Muslims continue their friendship come to mind. Seven- old traditional friendship with teen years ago I wanted to pur-
Britain Builds For Air Supremacy
From a tiny biplane, pottering! along at 50 miles an hour, to a vast assemblage of swift, pow-| erful aircraft, growing in num- bers till they will represent the most formidable war machine the world has ever known...
So one might epitomise three|| decades in British aircraft pro- duction.
By
Harry Harper
fully-trained Empire pilots, the air might of Britain will indeed be something to win universal won- der.
Triumph Of
Planning
More than forty years previous- ly, as a young man, he had suffer- cd from deafness and was advised to go to England to seek medical advice.
and without knowledge of your "I arrived," he said, "a stranger
language, and received so much kindness and consideration that I resolved to return such kindness when opportunity occurred in iny own land."
1
was invited to a Moorish lunch by some notables of the city, my fellow guests being five officers of the Royal Navy. The chief treasure shown to us was a signed photograph of Queen Vic- toria which had been given to one of the family years ago when he was on government service in London.
+
It was surprising to us to snó the knowledge and interest thèse Moors displayed in the Queen and her descendants and Empire.
A Word To Britain
Just before the outbreak of the present War, Muslim friends came When you walk through one of with Arabic letters written to Mr Britain's great aircraft factories-Chamberlain and to Lord Halifax a fascinating hive of round-the- Their request was that we should
aircraft than had ever been pro-elbek effort what intrigues you where in the world before.
riore than anything else. is all translate them into English. They that detailed, complicated plan- were spontaneous letters of grati
The Greeks have had their successes. They have fought valiantly against superior num- bers. They have exploited the ground advantages to Italian discomfiture. They have held their lines at every point, hitherto, and there is no indication yet that the Italians are capable of shaking them- selves free of the conseq- uences of incompetent preparation for large- scale military operations. To-day, we find fact eclipsing
It was a new record in produc-ning, by designers, constructors, tude and sympathy for all that But the battle has only eers of the band of enthusiasts tion-though actual figures can- and workshop managers.
not be quoted. But it did not re- can alone evolve order from such these two statesmen had done to just been joined. It is not who, thirty years ago this aut main a record long. As Britain's a welter of varying processes and obtain a just and honourable over by any means yet umn, watched on Salisbury Plain vast organisation of production problems,
peace. Gracious replies came, and it would do ill service the birth of British air power.
continues to gather impetus, the
which they brought to us. Agures of to-day are soon eclipsed to the Allied cause to ex- It was my privilege to be one by those of a few days hence. aggerate the importance of that little group when, early on
In one month, lately, Britain's of the past week.
a chilly morning in September, aircraft industry more than doubl-
Muslims And The Axis 1910, we saw Capt. Bertram Dicked an output that had been con They have, however, son set off on the first aeroplane sidered a triumph in a correspon- piece of mechanism than the mod-
dent month a year ago.
Muslims in Morocco have ern warplane, or one more difficult closely followed the mpirations of sufficiently damaged the reconnaissance flight
in British army mahoeuvres, I have devoted my life to avia-to produce quickly in vast quan-ay and Germany to extend their prestige of Il Duce's arm-
tities.
African territories. Italy's conquest ies to cause Hitler to
Every ounce of weight that can and administration of Libya, with
final result must possess tremen- dous strength.
the wildest dreams of the pion-
:",
ever made
tion. Thirty years ago, just after After he had landed, I drove that first employment of aircraft
which
planes, combined with magnifi
The brains behind Britain's
Such links as these cannot be
cent work in the factories are broken: achieving wonders.
complicated,
more
The world has seen no
highly-specialised.
pause before rushing to with him to make a report which in British manoeuvres, I sat down be saved must be saved. Yet the all its cruelties, have been care- Italian support through gave Headquarters information as either Bulgaria or Greece, to the "enemy" which could not have been obtained by any.other
That flight, and others that suc-
with that flying. pioneer, Mr. Claude Grahame-White, to write a book called "The Aeroplane In War." It was the first to deal ex- clusively with all the potentialit ies in modern war of the heavier than-air flying machine.
fully watched.
Then came the shock of the And not only is the machine it- self a miracle of lightweight en-Abyssinia campaign with its ruth- gineering, but before it can be as less and wanton destruction of the sembled it must be fitted with an defenceless.
Spending For Victory astonishing amount of additional
but essential equipment.
Prestige is one of means. the keys to Axis success. Should Hitler desire to ceeded it, tumed a fresh page in stiffen Italian troops with war history. In the years since some of his own or to then, from being the "Cinderella" move discreetly to over- of the Services, we have haul Italian Air Force tac-aviation emerge into a glory which ture of aeroplanes and their en-armament, wireless, navigational
tios, which have been as- tonishingly inadequate, some display of confidence in Italian, conduct of the war would in normal cir- cumstances be a politic prelude.
words cannot describe..
epen
Air Epic On The Ground To-day's dramas of the make us hold our breath in ad- miration and in wonder. But,
amazing, though they are, they do Ear 1101 tell the whole story, Hasty German action from it. Because down on the to remedy Mussolini's fai- ground below we have another
the
One of the things we urged was establishment of a pioneer British industry for the manufat-
gines.
What a lot of money that seem- ed then! There were, in fact,
Apart from air-francs, wings, engines, and air-screws, a cease- less flow. must be maintained of
instruments, and a host of other Attings.
Italy's offers of cooperation as the Triend of the Muslims” evoke in these Musilms the firm determination that no more of thole brethren shall come under the Italian yoke,
A But those peerings of ours Into
"Hajj". passed through the future were greeted with
The keynote of the whole pro- pilgrimage. He had lived during Morocco last spring before the scepticism more
particularly lem-the one factor upon which the German regime in an African when we had the temerity to sug- technicians have to keep an ever- territory, and he recounted to his skies gest, as we did, that at least a watchful eye is that there should brethren what it meant
delay, be devoted to the produc- check the flow of some vital piece million pounds should,
to the without be no "bottleneck," anywhere, to Muslims. tion of military aircraft.
of equipment--no weak link even in such a complicated chain.
If Hitler were to re-establish Germa power in any of these
1 many who declared such an ex-bottlenecks" in production is the the end of freedom for Muslims. The sudden appearance of such territories he knew it would be penditure to be utterly preposter nightmare of those
controlling emigrate to British or some other He was planning to be ready to lure to get off with the dráma which is in its way just ous. But how far would that mil-Britain's aircraft output. They democratic nation's territory, and lion go towards defraying our watch for them vigilantly. They there were many families in his astronomical expenditure of to- are ready at a moment's notice home country anxiously awaiting. day? obvious and immediate That drama is the grødt draha
to pounce upon any tangle that may develop, smoothing it out be-
{the verdict. effect of further damag- of British aircraft production-of Apart from the gigantic sums fore production can be impaired With the Moroccan French ing Italian prestige the swirt, ceaseless pouring forth we are devoting here at home to
winning, air supremacy, we must: Never before has mankind seen oficiais under the orders of the abroad and morale at or machines in numbers so enor not forget the more than 1,000 such a stupendous production en-Vichy Government, our Muslim mous that the achievement op-million dollars we are spending in terprise as the creation by the allies there at present are forced home.
pears almost Incredible to any Amerion, to say nothing of over British Empire of this colosstil to stand by and take a passive. one who remembers, as I can, our 50 million dollars worth of air-armada of the air.
position..
right foot would have the as herole.
for Canada to supply us with.
Unless he is now throw-amculties years or turning craft and parts tvé have arranged
out a mero handrul of 'plänes from ing all caution and guile the first of our shops: to the wind, Hitler is
Things which likely to give Mussolini anclared impossible opportunity of achieving Brought to pass. ́some measure of success
by his own unaided efforts before intervening to hasten the proceedings.
"The heroes of history," ps- kord ...Some Moorish soldiers escaped Beaverbrook : has emphasised," | during the withdrawal.from. - The more one thinks of it, the "will be our young adventurers of Franco and are now in England more staggering to the imagina- the Royal Air Force. And it is with General de Gaulle's forcek. ive now been tion does this colossal air produc- they" he adds-speaking as our
tion programme of ours become. Minister of Aircraft Production- Muslim French Morocco has not When our own effort is being re-{ "who know how to make, use of changed in heart and our old allica Just recently encouraged to inforced by as many as 3,000 aft- the weapons we are putting Into eagerly await an opportunity to efforte even greater by Lord Bea- craft a month from the United their hands. It is they who will continue the struggle with Britah verbrook our British, factories States, and with the vital train-| bring us a victory that will be and all freedom-loving people un- turned out in a single week more ing scheme in Canada supplying followed by our years of splend-til the tyranny of Berlin and Romo aircraft than had even been pro- us with an ever-growing army of our and triamprï.
{is truklied,