The Dominion. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1942. THE WRONG STATE OF MIND

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 29, 29 October 1942, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1942. THE WRONG STATE OF MIND

In a dispassionate and balanced review of all aspects of the war situation in the Pacific, published in the New York Times, Mr. Hanson Baldwin makes some pertinent observations concerning the spirit of the war effort in Australia. He particularizes the attitude of labour, best described, he says, as one of complacency, and adds that many workers seem primarily interested in retaining their peacetime privileges. To say so is not “labour baiting/’ as Dr. Evatt, the Federal Attorney-General, unduly sensitive about Mr. Baldwin’s comments, declares in his rejoinder. It deals with an attitude of mind which is not peculiar to Australia, nor characteristic of a particular class. In fact, as Mr. Baldwin, very fairly,.himself admits, it is “the reflection of a casual, easy, carefree mind too common in many of the United Nations.”

We must ourselves admit that this is a very accurate diagnosis. We were inclined to bask in complacency while the conflict was raging on the other side of the world. There was less complacency when the war came to the Pacific. A greater spirit of urgency then prevailed, but only until the feeling gained ground and became dangerously current, that the Japanese enemy would be unable to break through the outer chain of islands that make a natural defensive perimeter protecting Australia and New Zealand. Then began to be heard grumblings about such things as the tedium of fire-watching, about the futility of it. Attention has already been called to a tendency to mark time in the E.P.S. services. This state of mind has been noted in various other aspects of the war effort. It comes from an utterly false conception of the real nature of the danger that threatens our country. We have only to read with serious discernment the dispatches from the Solomons to realize how slender is the hold the Allied forces have on this vital link of the perimeter chain of islands, how desperate may be the struggle to maintain it, and what might conceivably happen if it were lost altogether. We must bear ourselves in all aspects of our war effort as if such a conceivable happening might be resolved into a certainty. The spirit to be emulated, translated into positive action, is that of the man digging for dear life to entrench himself on the battle-front. He must go “all out” to save himself, his comrades, and it might even be his entire company or battalion. Even a single slacker might bring disaster upon his fellows. And so it should be everywhere behind the .front, in field and factory, in services of one kind and another, in the practice of thrift and economies, and in the output of human energies. The one thing that matters, that will tell in the hard test of warfare, is the utmost that a man can do irrespective of what he earns or how long he works. It is the result that counts. That is what too many of us fail to realize.