New Zealand and the War.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16266, 17 July 1918, Page 6

New Zealand and the War.

We are glad to see that Sir James Allen, the Acting-Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, has emphatically dissociated himself from the suggestion of the High Commissioner that New Zealand is not able to spare more men for the front, and that we can now rely upon the Americans to supply the necessary man power. The same suggestion waß made more than a year ago, and our readers will remember

how strongly we dissented from it. Seeing how urgent has been the need for men ever since, and how vitally important it is to have at the front at the present moment every man who can be spared from every part of the Empire, there are few really patriotic New Zealanders who are not now profoundly thankful that the insidious advice to "go daw" proffered to us twelve months or so ago was not listened to. New Zealand was the first oversea Dominion to enter the war, and she is not going to be the first to leave the Motherland to struggle on as best she may with the help of foreign Allies who, magnificent as they are in every respect, con never Be the same to her as her own sons. To do so would be to proclaim ourselves a nation of "quitters."

Sir' James Allen says very truly that we entered the campaign with the intention of seeing it through, and he believes that the people of New Zealand are determined to do so. He believes also that the men at the front wish to stay it out to the end. We are undoubtedly approaching a time when the strain on our man power will begin to be felt. The Mother Country and her European Allies reached that stage long ago, but we hear no talk of their quitting and leaving America to finish their job. "We do not believe that even the fainthearts who say that New Zealand has done enough really desire that this Dominion, which, has done so splendidly until now, shall, at this stage, desert our men at the front, leave them to use up their reserves, and then gradually dwindle away with the wastage of war until, in the day of victory, New Zealand is represented on the field of triumph with only a handful of men out of her indomitable troops, or, possibly, with none at all. Yet that is the inexorable course of events, if the polity of leaving it to the Americans is adopted. We started off with the promise and the intention of keeping a division of New Zealand troops at the front. Hitherto that promise has been kept to the very letter. So far as can be seen at present, there is nothing to prevent us from keeping it to the end of the war, and there is no question that if it is within, our power we ought to do so. Wo think the High Commissioner is going beyond his proper functions in speaking on such an important question of policy, especially when ho ought to have known that he was misrepresenting the feeling of the people of New Zealand, and we cannot understand why the Prime Minister and Sir Joseph Ward did not publicly disavow a statement which we foel sure was not made with their authority, and cannot meet with their concurrence.