WILL OF THE PEOPLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 February 1940, Page 5

WILL OF THE PEOPLE

MR SAVAGE ON DEMOCRACY

ACTION AGAINST WOULD-BE SABOTEURS. THE APPEAL FOR VOLUNTEERS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The spirit of democracy was discussed last night by the Prime Minister. Mr Savage, in another of his Sunday night talks on current. New Zealand problems. After referring to the enemies of democracy, Mr Savage said that democracy thrived only in an atmosphere of responsibility. The Government of this country would use, and it was now in the act of using, every means which it had at its disposal and which it regarded as most effectual to carry out the will of the people, which was to make war with all its heart and strength till a just victory was won. It was not only going to employ, it was now actually employing, the machinery of justice according to law in order to defeat all would-be saboteurs, with what thoroughness the public would soon be able to judge for itself. FIRST AND GREATEST NEED. After repeating his previous statement that the immediate need was for soldiers, men who would fight on land, sea and in the air, Mr Savage said that that need would remain the first and the greatest as long as the war continued. It would be met only by young men pressing forward for service in their hundreds—their thousands—all the time, without any let-up, pause or stop. That need could certainly not be met if young men capable of bearing arms declined to take them up because they would not separate themselves even for a time from high wages, safety and pleasure. "But that will never be the picture of young New Zealand,’ said the Prime Minister. “I feel confident of that. "I have said that it is my earnest wish and hope that every New Zealand soldier will be a volunteer, compelled to serve only by his own conscience. I say that again, and without misgiving, for I believe in the young manhood of this country. New Zealanders will never let New Zealanders down; and those who go forth to war can know that behind them all the time reserves are forming, ready to relieve them when relief is needed. “Sacrifice will not be restricted to service in the field. It will extend fo the whole of our civil life. It will affect the work, the leisure, the forms of recreation, the luxuries and even the necessaries of us all —and so it ought. There will be need also to draw without reserve on moral and spiritual resources—our courage, our resolution, our faith: shall we be able to stand the strain? Yes, I believe we shall, but only by the sternest exercise of selfdiscipline. DISCIPLINE DEMANDED. “It is that word self-discipline that brings me to the heart of my subject. In the opinion of the dictators, democracies are incapable of imposing on themselves the discipline that a life-and-death struggle demands. In their view democracies are incurably selfindulgent, lazy and cowardly. They believe that the people, left to themselves, are incapable of continuous and sustained sacrifice and that without the heavy hand of the master, national achievement on any great or heroic scale is impossible. “Remembering our past, I know this point of view to be utterly wrong. Yet I am compelled to remember that it is widely held; and that it is one of the reasons that explain why, in certain countries of the world, liberal and representative constitutions have been thrown away by peoples who once struggled for them and with high hopes set them up. Democracy collapsed in these countries because people lost faith in it. Why had they lost faith? Largely because of the aimlessness and weakness in the conduct of public affairs, the slackness and selfishness in the discharge of public duties which their democracy did little or nothing to correct. “I have no love for methods of repression or coercion in Government. But I have still less love for anarchy. If any person or body of persons defies the law. either directly by openly breaking it. or indirectly by refusing to carry out bargains made under it. a self-respecting Government has only once course open to it—to enforce the law.” In the course of further observations, Mr Savage said: "Let me suggest one form of self-help that we, the people, as private citizens, can usefully practise. We can make it our business to defend our institutions against detractors, and see that no disparagement of them goes unchallenged.”