The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 11, 1946 IN RETROSPECT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 23, 11 September 1946, Page 4

The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 11, 1946 IN RETROSPECT

JUST on sixteen months ago Nazi Germany laid down its arms before the victorious Allied armies. The most devastating war in European, if not world history was at an end. For five years the greater part of Europe had been in subjection to Nazi tyranny. The fortitude with which the people of England, standing isolated after Dunkirk, faced their long and hazardous vigil, the wholehearted national effort by which, with the co-operation of her empire units, her Dominions and her allies, she stood the siege until from a virtually defenceless island she became the spearhead for the final penetration to Berlin, will remain an epic not only in English history, but in the annals of great human achievements. On all sides it was realised that victory had not occasioned relaxation. Japan had yet to be defeated, while the devastation of war in Europe called for immediate attem tion. Poverty and famine threatened millions. Europe was streaming v/ith displaced people, men and women and children without homes, or whose homes had been obliterated. Ground that once bore yearly harvests to feed the huge urban population of the Continent was untilled, desolated, and there were few ships to carry food from those countries less severely treated in the holocaust of war. The restoration of normal living conditions, however, did not remain the sole task of the allies in their victory. Much more remained to be done if peace were to be worthy of its price. Thoughtful people felt only too keenly the basis of His Majesty the King’s Victory Speech when he said: We shall have failed and the blood of our dearest will have - flowed in vain if the victory which they died to win does not lead to a lasting peace founded on justice and established in goodwill. . . . Much hard work awaits us, both in the restoration of our own country after the ravages of war and in helping to restore peace and sanity to the shattered world. In other countries it was also realised that the struggle for peace, security and the higher principles of human life had not ended on the battlefield. Over a year has gone by and the transition has begun from war to peace conditions. Starvation yet faces millions, and will do so until the desolated lands begin once more to produce corn, livestock and the staple requirements of life. Many years must elapse before the material destruction of cities is made good. A new generation must grow up to replace that which the war has taken away. The Allied nations have signed a Charter to maintain the peace and security which they combined to win, and the enemy has been placed under a system of control designed both to punish, and to prevent the reemergence of a world menace. The principle of armed peace has replaced the Versailles ideal of disarmament. New international difficulties have arisen. Problems of world importance remain to be solved in India, in -the Middle East, in China, in the East Indies, in many parts of Europe and the Far East. Successive meetings of United Nations’ representatives and the Council of Foreign Ministers have made it only too clear that the road to international harmony and understanding is not easily traversed, and that problem of major importance cannot be resolved overnight. We passed on May Bth last the anniversary of the signal triumph of the Allied forces of right and justice over tyranny and enslavement. The intervening months have endorsed the view commonly expressed in the war years that victory in peace would be no less difficult of achievement than victory on the battlefield. Each day brings more evidence of the achievements that yet remain to be recorded before the peace can be said to have justified the sacrifices by which it was obtained. With the other allies, New Zealand fought for freedom to work out its own problems in its own way, and few counties began the post-war period with greater material advantages, less material loss, than did this Dominion. Today thoughts should be to the future as well as to the past. If thanksgiving is not to remain mere lip-service, something of the spirit of the great cause which was defended in the years of war must be incorporated more fully into our future national life.