NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE confugion created by France's decision that she could no longer continue the struggle is complete. Marshal Pawn's declaration is clearly not approved by all Frenchmen, and it can hardly be imagined that the fleet in particular will endorse it. General Mittelhauser, commanding the French armies in the Middle East, is reported to have announced that he will go on fighting. The situation may be cleared up by the disclosure of Hitler's terms, which are likely to be such as no French Government could accept. In that case France would fight on at sea, in the air and in her colonies, and might even be able to defend, like King Albert of Belgium in the last war, a corner of her country to form a bridgehead for reconquest when the moment comes. Meanwhile the fight resolves itself, primarily into the defence of Britain, and secondarily into the prosecution of the campaign in the Mediterranean, the possibilities of which must be explored to the full. It is satisfactory to know from Lord Beaverbrook that aeroplane production since May loth has been more than sufficient to replace all our losses since that date—as indeed it should be—and equally satisfactory that the United States should be sending us, in addition to other military supplies of every kind, ten destroyers and a number of fast patrol-boats. We cannot have too many of these types in view of a possible attempt at invasion by sea. One of the other questions still uncertain is the status of the British Government's offer to France of an Anglo-French Union. A French spokesman appears to consider the offer still open. It is important to know if that is so. Even a War Cabinet, even at such a crisis, could hardly commit us to so revolutionary and incalculable an arrangement for all time.
