WAR TIME DEMANDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1940, Page 6

WAR TIME DEMANDS

UNITY & HARD WORK NEEDED ADDRESS BY MR FRASER. LIMITS ON CRITICISM. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The importance of national unity and a whole-hearted war effort was emphasised by the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, in an address last night. He said that every division at present weakened the nation's effort and served only the purpose of the enemy. There was only one way to achieve victory and that was by hard work. There were urgent and solid reasons why all should work harder and produce more. "The time has surely come to forget. or at least place on one side for the period of the war and till our country is out of danger many old conflicts and divisions,” said Mr Fraser. "Indeed, we can no longer afford not to close our ranks, and not to forget differences. Political, economic, religious and other controversies pale into insignificance compared with the menace of physical and mental subjugation and slavery which threatens us. In face of the common danger confronting our country and ourselves, everyone of us. it doesn’t matter much what any, person, political party or other orga-' nisation said or did in the past. The. overwhelmingly important question is what are we saying today, and, more important still, what are we doing, or arc we prepared to do now to the best of our respective opportunities. That is what counts.

“It is entirely wrong, for instance, at a time when our very existence is t threatened and unity is so necessary that any section of the community should be singled out for attack by any other section, or by individuals or by newspapers. While, no doubt, unprejudiced plain speaking is healthy, helpful and even essential in normal times and may also be beneficial in certain circumstances in war time, the attacks made frequently without thought of the consequences, and sometimes deliberately, on sections of the people cannot but result in general national division, disintegration and disaster.

"Let us have unity, let us have sanity, and above all let us have wholehearted effort in our national mobilisation for defence,” said the Prime Minister. "It is plain that there is more work to. do and increasingly fewer people to do it. More workers, including many women workers, are required in our factories. Schemes for training workers, both male and female, are being organised. Here is a field for service opening up. If we are to succeed everyone must work harder, and I am confident that people will cheerfully make every sacrifice, knowing that their efforts will in some way contribute toward winning the war. "It was work that gave the Nazis all the war material they have, not gold or money, but the work was thr;, work of an enslaved people. We are free people, and a fortunate people, but • we shall have to discipline ourselves to work even harder than the Nazis. We have not only to catch up to them, we have to surpass them. “The issues at stake call for the last ounce and the last inch of effort. Though we cannot share the perils of our men fighting overseas nor share the daily peril of our kinsfolk in the British Isles, there is one thing that we can do here—produce more.

“Every additional ounce produced in our fields, factories and workshops is a blow struck for liberty; every ship loaded in record time and sent laden with food to our kinsfolk in Great Britain is a hammer stroke for freedom; every penny contributed to war funds or patriotic funds, and every penny raised in national security taxation is ammunition to win the war. Let us all unite our efforts in one common purpose —to work for victory, to work for our lives, to work as we have never worked before.”