Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1940. IDEALS THAT WILL NOT FADE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 April 1940, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1940. IDEALS THAT WILL NOT FADE.

FOR Years after the Great War had been I'midit and won, it was believed widely in this country and in many others that, at a jjreat price, peace had been established and made secure That, belief has been shattered. W e look back todav on months of warfare, perhaps only the interlude to an even more grim and deadly conflict than that ol a quarter ol a century ago—a conflict, at all events, m winch the spirit and power of nations are once again being tested to their depths and in which the fate of free humanity is visibly at stake. 1< or New Zealanders and for their cousins in Australia, Jo whom in common Anzae Dav has become the greatest of national anniversaries, the facts mean simply that the glorious tradition of service and sacrifice to -which we pay honour on this great day must more than ever be upheld in word and deed, the demand made in this lime of trial upon us and upon all nations determined Io uphold liberty and .justice is that we should continue and complete a task that was magnificently begun.

Anzae Dav will be commemorated this year not only in cities, towns and villages throughout Australia and New Zealand, and al the heart of the Empire, but in Egypt and m Palestine, by .New Zealanders and Australians once again in arms at the call of the Empire and in a noble cause —that ol the defeat of bloodthirsty and criminal aggression. Added meaning ami significance is thus imparted to the commemoration. Already the tradition of Anzae. Day is being built upon in great and gallant achievements. New Zealanders have given signal proof of their quality in their part, in a naval action Unit will live in history and many others are acquitting themselves as valiantly in the air fighting which counts for so much in modern war. Of too many of these it is already to be said, as the late Theodore Roosevelt said of his son: “lie fought in high air like an eagle, and like an eagle, lighting, died.” We know, too, that the members of our bind forces, in all they are called upon to undertake, will set the same high, standards of courage and devotion as their brethren at sea and in the. air squadrons of the Empire.

In face of the great emergency by which we are confronted, the commemoration of Anzae Day would lie dead and empty it it implied anything less than a generous and wholehearted national dedication to the cause of .’justice and liberty. As ji. community we cannot, but deplore bitterly the call once again made upon our best and bravest, to engage in murderous conflict. To that call, however, the manhood of a free nation plainly can make no other response than the one New Zealanders are making today. The alternative to the Allied war effort would be to allow the world to be overwhelmed by horror and desolation— by what l\lr Winston Churchill called the other day, in blunt and telling English, the filth of Nazi tyranny.

Whatever may be thought of the errors of peace policy and. reconstruction, efforts after the last war, there can be no doubt in any reasonable mind of the justice of the cause in which the Allies are'fighting. There is no question, so far as the Allies are concerned, of imposing unreasonable or unfair restraints on any nation, but there is a fixed and unrelenting determination to make an end of the bestial barbarism to which Germany has reverted under Hitler’s leadership. The decisive defeat of German aggression manifestly is a condition of the re-establishment of a national and international order with which any self-respecting man or woman can afford to be content.

Nowhere tire these truths better understood or appreciated than in New Zealand, and it follows that we must be prepared to use all our resources, human and material, in support of the Allied .cause. In essentials we are faced by the self-same task as was faced by those to whose achievements, sacrifices and great example we pay a tribute of grateful memory on Anzae Day. With our continued existence as a free people at stake, we are called upon to extend and enlarge the tradition ol Anzae Day, no! only in reverent memory, but in positive and resolute action. The call, too, is made, not. only upon the members of onr fighting forces and upon those who will join them on the battlefield, but. upon every member of the community. By helpful effort and by the suppression of everything that impairs and hinders national unity we may all of ns contribute to the effort that is needed to overcome the forces of evil ami the deadly dangers that now menace free I In the extent, to which it deepens a determination to achieve this loyal unity of effort, the commemoration of Anzae Day more than ever will serve a noble purpose.

AN AMERICAN SUGGESTION.

JN these days when projects of European and world federation are engaging the attention of thinking people in many parts of the world, nothing sensational is likely to be seen in a. suggestion reported yesterday to have been made by an American military writer, .Major George Bidding' Eliot. in evidence triven before the Naval Affairs Committee ol the United States Senate. Major Eliot, according to a Washington cablegram, expressed the opinion that a Pacific alliance between Britain, America and the Netherlands would be ineffective because Britain and Holland at present have no freedom of action. Ho advocated instead an agreement with Australia, and added that if the United States had the support of Australian bases and loaned money to improve them it might be in a better position in the Pacific. Although Major Eliot, as he is reported, appears Io have made rather Tight of the fad that the United States has an Atlantic as well as a Pacific seaboard, his suggestion is worthy of closer’al lent ion and more support than, probably, it is likely to get for the lime being in the United Slates. The United Stales and Australia are so_ completely of one mind in desiring Io maintain peace in the Pacific that they might very reasonably combine in establishing defensive saleguards. What is Io be said of Australia in this matter applies with equal force Io New Zealand. More particularly since the I nilod Stales undoubtedly relies in some measure upon Hie British Navy for security against attack from Europe, no disloyalty to the Empire and certainly no weakening ol Empire, lies. need be entailed in a defensive agreement between the South Pacific Dominions and Hie United Stales. So far. indeed, as security against invasion is concerned, the I niled Stales and ( anada arc for practical purposes already joined in a defensive understanding. ■\ formal a' * ree 111 e 111 on these lilies between 111 e lulled Stales ami the Pacific Dominons would represent a valuable step towards the world eo-operali<m ol peaeelitl nations in a system of collective security. Mitch as it is Io lie com mended on its merits, however. Major Eliot’s suggestion must lie regarded as r ling well ahead of formed American opinion. \'o doubt it will tie condemned unreservedly by a considerable body of isolationist opinion in the United States.