ALL POSSIBLE AID

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 June 1940, Page 4

ALL POSSIBLE AID

NEW ZEALAND’S PLEDGE TO BRITAIN STATEMENT BY PREMIER. SYMPATHY WITH FRENCH. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “As Britain’s task becomes harder and her peril becomes greater, we in New Zealand are increasingly strengthened in our determination to stand by her and to give her • all the aid that lies within our power,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, in a statement on the war situation last night in the House of Representatives. “In the course of my statement to the House last week I referred to the fact that the war had entered a most critical stage with the French action in seeking an armistice with Germany and Italy,” Mr Fraser said. “Since I spoke the harsh and humiliating terms of that armistice have been accepted by the Bordeaux Government. This was followed by a separate armistice with Italy, and-hostilities between the three Powers ceased on Monday last. “The terms of the French surrender have been published and their grave import in respect of the security of the British Commonwealth is, I know, fully realised. Throughout these anxious times the Government has been kept closely, indeed daily in touch with the position by his Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom. “While we deplore the decision taken by the Bordeaux Government, we have no desire to utter any reproach to the French people, who have fought so magnificently and suffered so cruelly in the war with Germany. We deeply sympathise with them in the bitter trials with which they are now faced.

“To the French communities in the South Pacific, the New Zealand Government has expressed its sympathy and its desire for mutual co-operation. The warm-hearted sympathy of all New Zealanders is extended toward the French people living in this country, and we invite them to remain with us in our struggle against the common enemy. The deliverance of France and of the other conquered nations is dependent upon ultimate British victory, and we confidently believe that that task is not beyond our powers and our resources. “The British peoples have no illusions as to the dangers and difficulties ahead, but they are all fuily determined to carry on and to prove to the world that their resolute temper and their spirit if independence are sufficiently strong today, as they had always been in the past, to withstand and overcome the fiercest of attacks. This is a war in defence of civilisation in which the British peoples are proud to fight, and at such a fateful hour we in New Zealand are equally proud to be associated with them.”