Nelson Evening Mail THURSDAY. OCTOBER 15. 1942 THE SPIRIT OF MUNICH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 15 October 1942, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail THURSDAY. OCTOBER 15. 1942 THE SPIRIT OF MUNICH

IF our commanders on the battlefront showed as much irresolution in dealing with the enemy as our leaders at home have in appeasing dissident elements we would lose the war and would deserve to. The Prime Minister’s political adroitness in the House last night in seeking to turn an expression of no-confidence into a renewed pledge of loyalty to the Government was only another expedient to try to cloud the issues which arise from weak handling of j the Waikato strike. Everyone knows Mr Fraser will get his amendment passed because the voting power of his Party machine will be brought to bear but the accusing finger of de- . throned principle will still be there long after the no-confidence motion has been disposed of. Not so easily can retreat from principle be carried out with impunity. Defending the Government’s atti-j tude towards the striking miners, Mr Fraser, by a display of political 1 gymnastics, resorted to the great j need of coal for the war effort asi justification for the retreat. He wasj not, he said, going to agree to thej outlawing of a section of the community but did not say whether the strikers were to be allowed to act as outlaws against their country at war. At the hurdle of principle he baulk-! ed. Sacrifice of principle to expe-' diency was the rock on which the. War Administration split, yet Mr Fraser carefully refrained from discussing at length the setting aside of; a principle as vital to our way of life, 1 as any involved in the war. He j preferred to excuse the action taken on the ground that it was the commonsense way of settling the dispute.; If this is true are there any methods,; however questionable, which cannot j be defended on the score of com-; monsense? Coal at any price was 1 apparently the Prime Minister’s j maxim and if this involved surrender to a minority whom the Govern- j ment Ministers described as “wreckers” it was evidently considered i that the end justified the means, i In the Parliamentary debate now \ t Government spokesmen are busy | trying to gloss over the surrender, : j to make us believe that industrial ’ revolts are at an end, that everything will henceforth go along sweetly and that the public will soon forget all. about the unfortunate “incident.” But the country will not forget that four men at least gave up posts which; they were anxious to retain rather than be a party to such surrender. Who ever heard of a New Zealand Labour Minister resigning until, at length, we find Mr Langstone speaking out loud and bold from Ottawa? . However unsuitable Mr Langstone. might have been for the post of High ' Commissioner to Canada lie has at least had the courage to express strong resentment at “false pretence'’ or “double-crossing” or at.; "being treated like a schoolboy, even J by the Prime Minister” and to give upoffice rather than submit to such al- i leged indignities. Apparently thej strong sense of humanitarianism which Mr Fraser professes towards

striking miners is not always demonstrated towards his colleagues. Does our Prime Minister recall the locust days and Munich? How, in the international sphere, we made one retreat after another, losing ground and losing face, until, brought to the edge of the abyss, the free peoples had to turn round and tight in order to avoid being pushed into oblivion? Men of vision, notably Mr Churchill, pointed to the terrible dangers which lay along that road. They were dubbed scaremongers and those in command ladled out soothing syrup as an antidote to keep the people drugged. That was expediency. Wc could not see it then but it is tragically plain now- Is it not possible that a similar condition could arise in the internal affairs of a nation when Government policy is one of retreat, retreat and retreat again before sections of the community who threaten its authority and sabotage its war effort? It is that path which the Government of New Zealand is treading now. Appeasement stinks in the nostrils of the people yet. the Government practises it whenever industrial troubles arise. Public men who protest loudly against the encouragement in our midst of the spirit which led to Munich are rendering a great service- At least Mr Holland and the Ministers who resigned with him will not be numbered among those whom the future may call “guilty men” because they persisted in a discredited appeasement policy. The public arc becoming restive at this embarrassing trend, of which Huntly is only one example. Cannot Mr Fraser, who in many things shows shrewd judgment, sense the dangers of appeasement and expediency and take a stand which will result in their being chased out of our political life and industrial relations?