liberated they will lay down their offices and it will be 
      for the country to choose its government That is a point on all 
      are agreed (Interruption.) I feel myself the greatest sympathy 
      for this young king. He came to his responsibilities at a most 
      critical hour in his country's history. He did his best to rally 
      his country to the Allied cause, and he is now faced with the 
      most difficult problems that any young monarch could be faced 
      with. I repeat that we must try to be fair, and, if I may use 
      the word, not too, partisan in our actions in the literal and 
      not the military sense of the word. Finally on that subject, 
      let me tell the House this. We are in consolation with other 
      Allied governments on this policy, and the Prime Minister and 
      I devoted no little time to it while we were in Cairo. We are 
      now at work in conjunction with our Allies to bring all those 
      in Yugoslavia or out of it together who want to fight the common, 
      German enemy. I hope that the contributions of this House will 
                      be made to that end.                  
 
      One word about Greece. The position there is not on all fours 
      with the position in Yugoslavia. There are warring bands, all 
      of them in different degrees hostile to the Germans. There are 
      also political controversies which cut right across the matter. 
      It is our aim there to try and unite all these bands, or almost 
      all of them, in common action against the enemy. We have some 
      hope that we may have a measure of success in that. The recently 
      published letter of the King of the Hellenes which he had written 
      last November to his cabinet, shows clearly that the king is 
      anxious to make his contribution so that his position shall not 
      be a matter of controversy or get in the way of unity. I am not- 
      without hope that we may see some progress in the near future, 
    though I do not pretend that the task is particularly ea
 
                                                            
 
 
I want to say something about the progress of the fighting 
      in Italy, because it is wrong that we should adjourn for Christmas 
      w %ithout the House being informed of the latest information that 
      the government has. We must admit, first of all that the advance 
      of the Allied Armies in Italy the third end fourth months of 
      the campaign has not covered quite the spectacular distances 
      we achieved in the first two months. That, of course, is not 
      due to lack of initiative on the part of our armies. The truth 
      is that we have now reached what is the narrowest part of the 
      Italian penisula. The Apennines stretch almost from coast to 
      coast here the Apennines stop the swollen rivers take over. That 
      is the position which confronts us. These natural facilities 
      afford