PRICE OF VICTORY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 December 1939, Page 5

PRICE OF VICTORY

PLEA FOR NATIONAL UNITY. MADE BY STOCK EXCHANGE CHAIRMAN. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, December 18. An appeal to the Government to make a practical demonstration of its loyalty to the Empire, not only by forgetting past and petty quarrels, but by “ceasing to set up one class against another by insidious propaganda,’ was made by the retiring chairman of the Christchurch Stock Exchange, Mr H. Kitson, in his address at the annual meeting of the exchange. Mr Kitson quoted the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon, as saying in his Budget speech: “If the price of victory is high it is worth paying.” There were few in New Zealand, he said, who would quarrel with that statement, provided the victory to be paid for was victory over our enemies and not the victory of one class over another within our ranks.

“We should, as a people, have to today but one common object, the defeat of Nazism,” he said. "Have we? Are all our efforts being directed to one goal, or are side issues taking up too much of our attention? There are two sides to every question, and it is folly to disregard the minority entirely. A common foe should bind a people together, no matter whether the foe is at our gates or not. “As it happens," Mr Kitson continued. "we have not had much to bring home to us the fact that we are at war. and at war with a mighty foe. Therefore I am not going to criticise the Government, or produce figures that clearly indicate the trend of our finances. Rather I am going to ask that the Government make a practical demonstration of its loyalty to the Empire, not only by forgetting past and petty quarrels, but by ceasing to set up one class against another, by insidious propaganda. This would enable our contribution to the price of victory to be not merely our sons’ blood and our treasure, but our combined efforts. “No one section of the community has a moopoly of brains. Ideals may be wonderful things, but they are apt to produce fanatical thinking, and unconsciousness; sleep walking is the sport of the unconscious. Let us awake and really combine our efforts. We owe it to the Empire. If we do not awake soon we will be too tired and unhappy to care."