ON SPECIAL MISSION

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 241, 13 October 1942, Page 3

ON SPECIAL MISSION

U.S. CON GRESSM AN VISITS WELLINGTON. MARINE CORPS COLONEL. A recent visitor to New Zealand was Colonsl Melvin Maas, U.S. Marine Corps, who represents Minnesota in the United States Congress. His presence in this country was not made known at the time, but it has since been announced that he was On a special mission to the Pacific, He spent- a few hours in Wellington. The Acting-Prime Minister, Mr Sullivan, entertained him at a small reception in the Cabinet room at Par liament Buildings. The guests included Ministers of the Crown, senior officials of the American Legation, members of both Houses of Parliament, the High Commissioner for Canada, Dr W. A. Riddell, and the acting Australian Trade Commissioner, Mr J. L. Menzies. Born in Duluth, Minnesota, Colonel Maas is of Swedish descent. He is 44 years of age and a salesman and business organiser by occupation. He served in the last war for nearly two years in the Aviation Branch of the Marine Corps, attaining the rank of captain. Between the Great War and this one he has been a reserve officer, and holds the office of national president of the Naval Reserve Officers' Association. A Republican in politics, Colonel Maas is second to the chairman on the House Naval Affairs Committee. "Colonel Maas," said Mr Sullivan, "is a very distinguished representative from that great republic of the West — our allies in the mightiesL struggle that has ever taken'place in the history of the human race. He comes to us with a distinguished record as a soldier, airman and a member of Parliament. His association with the Marine Corps is of intense interest to us in New Zealand because of the presence here of members of the American armed forces. They are most popular with our people, who have been glad to have them in their homes We have been proud to be associated with them, and I think they have been on the best of terms with our own gallant" boys, of whom we are very proud." "I am,' said Colonel Maas, "on my way back from Milne Bay and Port Moresby. This is not war, but the greatest upheaval in history. It is world revolution. Only one side is going to win. It can only be total victory for one side and total defeat for the other. I saw England under war conditions, and I have some conception of what we are up against, We are either going to win this war, and come out of it perhaps with nothing but our liberty, which is not too big a price to pay if we preserve that, or we shall be defeated and be submerged for a thousand years. The issue in this war has yet to be joined; the decision has still to be made. "The real asset that Germany and Japan have over the United Nations is their fanatical attitude towards war. War is repugnant to us; but till we overcome that repugnance with determination we are not going to win this war. The people of Germany and Japan are fanatical in their will to serve the State. We are individualists and always have been a race of individualists ; and if we are to have individual freedom again we must temporarily deposit everything in a common pool of war effort, NO BARGAINING AFTER WAR. "Germany and Japan are playlng war for keeps; they are not playing for marbles in this war. Their savage methods are beyond the conception of decent people. They kill as a business. Even after they are cap™ tured they continue to flght by trickery and deceit. We can't flght nicely in this war. We fell into the trap of this war because we are decent people, and because we observed decent standards of life. "If we lose this war we have lost forever; and if we win we must win everything that goes with it. There will be no peace conference this time at which there will be bargaining as there was after the last war. One ■side will win and simply tell the other' side what it is to do. We won the last world war on the battlefleld in 1918 only to lose it at a conference table in 1919. We may have to give up everything for the duration, even the shirts on our backs. "This will be a long war. Thers are many blacker days ahead than we have yet seen. But when on our hands and knees we have crawled back up the Pacific and reduced Japan to an island of naked savages, which they should be, and forever purged Germany of its militarist element, and twisted Italy back into some semblance of respectability, then the decent nations must unite in some form or other as a military and economic unity and forevermore be united. "If we win the war and throw the victorv awav. there will he in 3n

years' time another as much more : terrible war than. this one is over the last one. If this comes to pass, ; civilisation as we know it will never survive the next war. This is our last chance. "If we are to have any peace in the ■ world, the United Nations must maintain that peace. The United States of America, the United King-

dom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Norwegian and Low Countries, China, Russia — all these countries must stand together for decent standards, must be determined to keep the peace for generations to come. This will be the last opportunity for a world peace. "There is a long, bitter, bloody struggle ahead," said Colonel Maas, who remarked that he was glad that New Zealand had permitted her troops to remain at the front. "The defence of Australia is in the jungle fighting in New Guinea; the defence of New Zealand is in the Solomons and New Caledonia, not in local i fighting. I am hoping that out of j this great holocaust we can preserve j the legislative sysfcem of government in the decent nations of the world. All depends on how we handle that trust now. If we do that properly we shall rise to new heights in creating liberty for the peoples of the world; if we do not, the legislative system will disappear from the iace of the earth. We have no energies to waste in fighting among ourselves. Every ounce of our energy, every drop of our blood is required to defeat' Germany and Japan — and united we are going to defeat them." V