FIRMLY RESOLVED

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5290, 31 December 1946, Page 4

FIRMLY RESOLVED

rpHE first year of the post-war era has come to its end. It began on a high note of hope, yet the record shows it as a period of great changes, brought about or accompanied by extraordinary violence. China, Greece, Palestine, the East Indies and especially India, have been the scenes of civil commotion and armed confiict that ten years ago would have been viewed individually as a horrible calamity, yet news of strife in all these quarters simultaneously excites only casual interest, so innured have people become to the state of war. There have been valiant efforts on the part of national leaders to plot a calmer course for the world, and these efforts have not been entirely barren of real achievement, but there is danger not only from the rocks of national antagonisms, but from the shoals of public inertia. It is this latter peril that seems to be the main menace as far as New Zealand is concerned. While abroad kings are hurled from tlieir thrones and governments are made and unmade, we have here the spectacle of some factions seeking by means legal or illegal, but mainly anti-social, to s'ecure or refain power over other sections of a supine community. The process has no.t been continuous but the direetion of these moves has been constant and wide-awake people have come to the unwilling conclusion that the country is going to be subjected to more industrial pressure in the New Year. The symptoms are familiar and the condition of the Dominion, from the social, business and moral point of view is -Teaching a stage when a thorough overhaul of the "ofncial" ^-contacts between the various sections of the people is demanded. This having been said, New Zealand can still claim to have a good credit balance, both in the international sphere and in the British family. The credit was built up by a people of intrinsically. sound st'ock under conditions that proved their hardihood, ingenuity and rectitude. Historically, we are only 100 years old, and the next 100 " years will see this country assigned a status probably as important as that of the United Kingdom to-day, provided that the inherited characteristics ofthe people are not allowed -to be altered by mutual distruct or diluted by foreign associations. We have so much stil lto gain in this richly-endowed land if we are all firmly resolved to use the opportunities of the year1947 to the advantage of all and the detriment of none. - •