WITHOUT FEAR

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20035, 6 September 1939, Page 9

WITHOUT FEAR

TASK IN WAR DOMINION STAND GRATITUDE FOR PART FACING COMMON PERIL MENACE OF NAZI PAGANISM CENSURE P>Y MR, SAVAGE (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. “Both with gratitude tor the past and with confidence in the future, we range ourselves without .fear beside Britain," said the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, in an address broadcast over the national network in New Zealand last night. Mr. Savage spoke from his home in Northland and it was his first public address since he underwent a serious operation early last month. “The war on which we are entering may be a long one demanding from us heavy and continuous -sacrifice,” said Mr. Savage. “It is essential that we realise from the beginning that our cause is worth sacrifice'. I believe in all sincerity it is. "None of us has any hatred of the German people. For the old culture of the Germans, their songs, their poetry and their . music, we have nothing but admiration and affection. We believe that there arc many millions of German people who want to live in peace and quietness as we do, threatening no one and seeking to dominate no one, but wc know, alas, that such a way of life is despised and rejected by men who have seized and hold power in Germany'. “We know that .those men have done, and are doing, incalculable harm to the true interests of their country, and that they are wasting and destroying the intellectual, artistic, moral and spiritual resources

which their people have built up throughout the centuries. In doing this Ihey have, for the time facing, cowed the spirit of a vast number of their best people. “This work of destruction they have, already carried into other countries, and, despite denials, now intend., to carry into Poland. If they succeed then tligy. will next attempt the overthrow of France and Britain. Let us make no mistake about that. “Of course they repudiate any such intention, but fortunately for the world we know now what it has taken us a long time to learn, th.it. their promises are worthless. are made only to gain the advantage for the time being and are broken as soon as that advantage has been secured. “Not a moment too soon have Britain and France taken up arms against so faithless and unscrupulous an adversary. “The fight on which wc are now engaged is one whose- issue concerns all the nations of the world, whether as y-et they realise it or not. " “We are fighting a doctrine that springs from contempt of human nature—a doctrine that government is an affair only of a self-selected elite who, without 'consulting the people, may irrevocably determine what the people shall do and shall not do. The masses are to be used as instruments of power in the hands of their masters. Individuality Submerged “They are to be given slogans and directed toward this or that objective approved by those masters, but never are they to be treated as free men as individual and responsible souls. The individual man is submerged and forgotten and the intrinsic worthiness of his personality contemptuously ignored. Freedom of action and expression is denied to him. Dissent or criticism is 'brutally repressed. “These are a few of the incidents of the Nazi philosophy that is seeking to thrust itself everywhere over Europe to-day and the rest of the world to-morrow. “Nazism is militant and insatiable paganism. In its short but terrible history it has caused incalculable suffering. If permitted to continue, it will spread misery and desolation -throughout the world. It cannot be appeased or conciliated. Either it or civilisation must disappear. “To destroy it. not the great nation which it has so cruelly cheated, is the task of those who have taken up arms against Nazism. May God prosper those arms. “I am satisfied that nowhere will tlie issue be more clearly understood that in New Zealand where, for almost a century, behind the sure shield of Britain, we have enjoyed and cherished freedom and self-gov-ernment. Confidence in Future "Bofri with gratitude for the past and with confidence in the future, we range ourselves without fear beside Britain, where she goes we go. Where she stands, we stand. “We are only a small and young nation, but we are one and ail. a band of brothers and we march forward with union of hearts and wills to tlie common destiny." Before referring to the war. Mr. Savage said: “In this critical hour, of our own and the world's history, I feel I should abuse my privilege of addressing you if I were io speak of matters affecting myself personally. For that reason, and that reason only, I say no more of a ccr-