Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1939. OUR FUTURE AT STAKE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 September 1939, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1939. OUR FUTURE AT STAKE.

VO truer words have ever bAen spoken than those used by the Acting-Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) when he said, in the course of his statement in the House of Representatives yesterday on the subject of the war and the demands it makes on this country :— 1

Let there be no mistake. The future of New Zealand is at stake, equally with that of Great Britain and the other democracies. The question for all of us to decide . . . is whether this country, along with the Motherland, is to collapse in rums, crushing all we hold dear in life, or, in association with the Britisn Commonwealth, is to maintain, safeguard, and promote our progressive democratic, political, social and economic institutions, ensuring to the people continued liberty, security and happiness.

Much that is happening at the moment at the other end of the world, not least in ravaged Poland, is in itself calculated to impel New Zealanders to a vigorous war effort in support o / freedom and against dictatorship and tyranny. The call and tie of kinship with the Motherland and with the ijest oi the Empire count for much, too, in an emergency like that w uc i has taken shape in Europe. New Zealanders have, however, an even better reason for using all their resources ungrudgingly in the war against Nazism in the fact that their own freedom, at an ultimate view, is threatened as definitely as that of Poland.

The horizons, of this war are far as yet from being defined. We do not know whether the conflict is destined to be of long or shori duration, oriwhether its scope is now determined or is destined to expand by additions to the ranks of the belligerents. It is established quite clearly, however, that the fate of New Zealand'as a nation is indissolubly bound up, as the ActingPrime Minister deblared yesterday, with that of the United Kingdom and the other units of the British Commonwealth and that with them we stand or fall, “bond or free, in war or peace, in defeat or- victory.’’ Only by closing our eyes in vain and wilful folly to the facts of national and international life could ' we credit ourselves with immunity on account of our distance 1 from the present main theatres of war.

In what they had to say yesterday, the Acting-Prime Minister and his colleague the Minister of Finance (Air Nash) struck the right note and gave the right lehd in their unqualified acceptance and assertion of the position that New Zealand is a nation at war, called upon in its own interests as well as on larger grounds, to make whatever sacrifices are necessary in order that freedom and justice may be upheld.-

No light effort and sacrifice are thus demanded of the Dominion and its people. The greatest sacrifice of all is and will be made by those who enter the combatant ranks, whether as airmen or in land or sea forces. It is for.the remainder of the community to do everything in their power to second and support the efforts of the combatants, not least in the field of industrial production. It becomes a bounden duty to put our total national affairs in such order as will best conduce to a powerful, sustained and effective war effort. An important part of that effort, in New Zealand’s case, is to ensure a maximum continuing output of foodstuffs and other primary products.

With opinion united as it- is today, here and in other countries, in support of the just cause for which the democracies have taken up arms, New Zealanders will not'shrink from the demands and sacrifices our war effort entails, heavy though these may be. The first call made upon the resources of a nation at war is for the support, equipment and supply of its fighting forces. Those upon whom it devolves to continue their peace-time avocations should be prepared to make, readily and cheerfully, their full contribution, through the agency of heavy taxation and in other ways, to the material resources that are needed for the prosecution of the war.

In the right conditions of co-operation, it should be perfectly possible for the people of the Dominion to play their part worthily without suffering undue deprivation or hardship and it certainly should be possible to protect from hardship those to whom special .consideration is due, notably children, the sick and the aged. The point was justly emphasised by the Minister of Finance yesterday that, what is required is not it mere passive acquiescence in the imposition of Avar burdens, but a positive and quickened spirit of enterprise, directed in the industrial field to the greatest possible extension and expansion of production. In face of the gallant example of those who are volunteering for combatant, service, the people of the Dominion should have no difficulty in meeting well and worthily every demand that is and will be made on the home front.