NATIONAL UNITY

Taranaki Daily News, 18 September 1940, Page 8

NATIONAL UNITY

need for co-operation "It is too late to be quibbling over politics or even domestic problems. These sink into insignificance beside the problems that face this country and the world to-day," said the Hon. P. C. Webb, Minister of Labour, at New Plymouth last night. "Everything for which our fathers went even to the gallows— freedom, citizenship and liberty — is at stake, ' he added. "I paid the penalty for my opinions in the last war," continued the Minister, "but it is a completely different case on this occasion. The real issues could _be argued on that occasion but not on this." Mr. Webb went on to say that the Allies were resisting a system of dictatorships. He did not care whether it was the Hitler or the Stalin system, but he felt strongly that any system that did not allow the people full freedom in the election of their own parliament was a wrong one. "It was stated that a democracy could not organise," he said, "but Britain is going to prove that this is not correct and we are going to help her to do so," The Minister stated that the manner in which the Industrial Emergency Committee had gone about its work had been a revelation. On that committee were representatives of workers, employers and farmers, but they had approached each question from a national viewpoint and not an individual one. Problems that had previously been considered impossible to solve had found an easy solution. "If we can face our problems with this spirit, we will find no problem too big," he concluded. "Co-operation in its fullest sense is one of the secrets of our future, but there is no future that can --;st without work, and hard work."