THE EMPIRE'S WAR ACTIVITIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 129, 14 July 1941, Page 3

THE EMPIRE'S WAR ACTIVITIES

GREATER SACRIFICES

NEW ZEALAND AND WAR SIR HARRY BATTERBEE'S WARNING A warning that the people l of New Zealand might be called on for greater sacrifices before the war was AA r on was given by the* High Commissioner for the United Kingdom, Sir Harry Batterbee, addressing the Royal Agricultural Society of NeAv Zealand in Wellington. Hoav was the Avar baing paid for. he asked.lt Avas being paid for out of the pockets* of the people of Great Britain; it Avas being paid f jr because th~ were ready to sacrifice their montheir property, their lives and they possessed to the war effort. Steps had been taken at Home by which, apart from luxuries, there AA r as really no avenue by which the people of Great Britain could spend, their money except Sn payment of taxes or lending it to the State. Little Mood for Pleasure. Food of all kinds had been very strictly rationed, clothes were now Tationed, there Avas no time for holidays, except of the briefest; there was little mood for pleasure. The British people, therefore, had been compelled in one Avay or another to devote all their money to the State. "Compelled" Avas the Avrong AA T ord. for the people at Home Ave-re bearing all their sacrifices checrfuily and ungrudgingly. "It may be," Sir Harry said, "thai the people of New Zealand may be called upon for greater and greater sacrifices in the Avay of going without everj'thing. but essentials, of economising in every Avay possible in things like petrol, paper, neAA'sprint—eArerA r thing which costs dollars. And as the time goes on other sacrifices, may become necessary. NeAv Zealand, alas, is already bearing her share of the loss of young lives Avhieh Avar entails. 38,000 Killed in Britain. "Many homes I knoAV in Ncav Zealand arc filled Avith mourning and anxiety to-day. Let them be fortiefid by the: thought that similar losses and anxieties arc being bom." in all other parts of the Empire. lAnd let it never be forgotten that in the United Kingdom every day and every] night, rp.en, women and children are being massacred and mutilated by the ruthless bombers

raining down death unci destruction from the sikj r . Up to the end of May 35,000 men, women and children had been killed in Great Britain, and upwards of 50,000 seriously injured. "Throughout the British Commonwealth to-day there is community of sacrifice and efforts in the common cause," Sir Harry concluded. "If we are all prepared together to make all the sacrifices necessary to the Avar effort, if we are prepared to devote to winning the war our lives, our money l , our property, our service of every kind, then we may hopes that out of this, dark welter of blood and tears, of horror and destruction, may come the dawn of a better and a happier world. But ir depends "upon our efforts now, our united efforts, our resolution to throw into the! struggle everything we possess whether that day dawns or not."