Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1941. AN ELECTION INEVITABLE?

THAT rather elusive quantity, “lobby opinion,” is said to be hardening in favour of a general election. Whether lobby opinion is interpreted rightly or wrongly in this instance, there is no doubt, that a general election in the immediate future would be opposed diametrically to the interests of the Dominion. An overwhelming majority of New Zealanders will agree that these interests demand an unimpeded concentration of energy and effort on the prosecution of the war and in these circumstances electoral campaigning could amount to nothing else than trifling futility. It has been said that Urn members of our opposed political parties, or some of them, are incapable o! working together in a coalition, but what right have any politicians to raise this cry al a time when the mass of the community behind them plainly is united in solid agreement on the things that, matter most? Candidates of any party, unless they wished Io commit political suicide, would be bound Io declare on the hustings that they were determined to prosecute the war with all possible vigour. With that all-important, question placed above controversy or dispute, what is there left on which to divide the country at the polls? Tn the formation of a united "war administration, the policy on which the present Government was elected and which it has carried into effect no doubt would have to be accepted as it stands, at all events for the time being. Any difficulty that could arise over questions of this kind in any ease is of small importance in comparison with the overshadowing dangers against which this country, with the rest, of the Empire and its Allies, is called upon to make head. This should the more readily be agreed al. a lime when there is a definite danger of new war developments which would directly and seriously affect New Zealand and other Pacific territories. The present turn of events in Russia, though it may be hoped that the brave armies and people of that country are far from being within sight of collapse, in a measure at least increases the possibility that Japan may elect to make common cause with her Axis allies. In conditions such as these, the New Zealand democracy ought Io be able to avoid the dissipation of energy that a needless and largely pointless election would entail. In any British country. Parliament ami the Government, in times of great emergency, are entitled and indeed are in duly bound to exercise- a largo measure ol discretion. In these Iremeiidonsly critical days our politicians have as little right to divide themselves, and seek to divide the electorate, into contending factions as our soldiers would have to do the same thing on the field of battle. MARSHAL PETAIN’S APPEAL JN bis latest appeal to his countrymen, Marshal Petain quite obviously is acting as an agent, of Nazi barbarity and oppression. lie asks Frenchmen, in effect, to submit tamely to every indignity and outrage the Nazis care to inflict upon them. The aged soldier’s speech has been described fairly by an American commentator as a blot on the history of France’s leadership and an insult to the French people. Even harsher things might, justly be said of an ostensible leader who does not even protest against the murder of batches of innocent. French citizens or the ruthless enslavement, and exploitation of the whole French nation, but is content Io urge that all things should be endured lest further innocents be slaughtered. It is, of course, plain enough that the whole Vichy Administration is to he regarded as part of the Nazi machinery. Whatever may be thought, of the prediction of early revolt, in France, reported in a cablegram from New York, no nation has ever been represented less worthily by a government than France is in her present days of tragedy by tin* men of Vichy. 'This means, amongst other things, that no faith whatever can be placed in stories like that transmitted yesterday that the Vichy Cabinet has approved a now plan for the defence of Dakar and that the West African port will be defended by Frenchmen against anyone who may attack it. Similar protestations, and denials of Nazi penetration of North and West Africa, have been made time and again, but they are demonstrably worthless. Commenting on these declarations some weeks ago, M. Henri Bernstein, the French dramatist, a member of the French Advisory Committee of the Fight for Freedom movement, observed that, the men behind Marshal Petain had advocated co-operation with Nazi Germany long before (he .French armistice. Three factors, M. Bernstein considered, accounted for the apparent willingness of Vichy to give guarantees that Dakar would not be surrendered to the Axis. These were: (1) Vichy’s concern for the 1,500,000.000 dollars in French funds frozen in the United States. (2) Popular feeling in France, which M. Bernstein said was still 90 per cent pro-British, according to the latest reports received in America. Frenchmen, he added, were strongly opposed to the Indo-China deal with Japan. (3) Strong pro-British feeling in the French colonial armies, meaning that Marshal Petain would be risking a battle among Frenchmen if he should order Dakar to be surrendered to the German forces. « While these factors doubtless operate, 11 has to be considered also that the Vichy Cabinet consists largely of unscrupulous traitors whose hopes for the future are wholly contingent upon a Nazi victory. It must be hoped that those men dare not move openly to surrender the French North and West African, colonies to Nazi Germany, but it is impossible to doubt that they are doing everything in their power to open the way to that transfer by underground scheming' and intrigue.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19410924.2.8

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 September 1941, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
960

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1941. AN ELECTION INEVITABLE? Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 September 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1941. AN ELECTION INEVITABLE? Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 September 1941, Page 4

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert