DAYS OF TESTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1941, Page 3

DAYS OF TESTING

PRIME MINISTER’S NEW YEAR MESSAGE OUR LIBERTY AT STAKE. DANGERS AND HARDSHIPS TO BE SHARED. (Bv Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “The year 1942 will find the people of New Zealand united in their firm resolve to do their duty,” says the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, in a New Year message. “For the first time in our country’s history, we are directly threatened by enemy attack and, at such a time, I am proud to say, the people are neither dismayed nor are they unaware of the perils and difficulties which may be in store for them. “Every citizen recognises that the first responsibility is to get together, here and now, and to work and if need be to fight,” continues Mr Fraser. “In the year just past the glorious example of our men overseas, of those who fought so magnificently against overwhelming odds in Greece, in Crete and in Libya, has inspired and strengthened all our people. I know I speak for every man and every woman when I say that, if the day' should come when we, too, may be called upon to defend our own soil, there will be no one who will not regard it as a privilege to share some of the dangers and hardships which the men of our Armed Forces overseas have endured; and no New Zealander will, I am sure, fail to acquit himself with equal courage and fortitude in the task of defending his own country. SOMETHING MORE PRECIOUS. “It is customary in the Prime Minister’s New Year message to wish happiness and prosperity, but for 1942 I can express no such sentiments. Something more precious, more vital and more real than pleasure or prosperity, is now at stake, and that is liberty. Because we have never known anything but freedom in its fullest measure we do not, and probably cannot, realise what its loss would mean. We do, however, have the example before us of millions of unfortunate people in Europe today and in Asia who are suffering the grim horrors and humiliations of conditions akin to .serfdom. In all those countries now deprived of national existence, as in almost every democratic country, there were many who said in the past, ‘lt cannot happen here.’ The year 1941 has, I hope, buried any such illusion, and it remains for us in the time still at our disposal to hasten and complete our preparations and to devote our whole national effort to the prosecution of the war. It is only three weeks since this Dominion became an outpost in an actual theatre of war. Already the people have responded magnificently, but much more is required of every-, one.

“The fateful year ahead will, in all probability, be the most crucial in our history and indeed in the history of modern civilisation. The capacity and character of the New Zealand people will be tested as never before, and it is for us to prove that we are worthy of the very great privileges we have so long enjoyed and that we are capable of maintaining the trust which has been imposed on us by those who founded this Dominion 100 years ago. AN APPEAL TO ALL. •• “As Prime Minister of this Dominion, I earnestly appeal to every citizen to work wholeheartedly with one object in view—the security of our own country and the furtherance of victory for the British Commonwealth and its Allies, against the forces of aggression in Europe, in the Atlantic, in Asia, in the Pacific, in North Africa, in the Mediterranean and in every theatre of war in which the enemy may make his attack.

“The odds against us are still great,” says the Prime Minister. “At the present moment we must steel ourselves against reverses and disappointments. Risks must be taken and for the time being there can be no guarantee of safety or easy success. But the tide will turn. We are marching with our courageous comrades of the . British Commonwealth and our brave Allies, in spite of difficulties, to a sure and certain victory. The vast resources in men and materials of the United States and Russia are being rapidly organised to that end. Our task in 1942 is to keep working and to complete our preparations and to stand fast if we are attacked. I am confident that we can and we shall rise to the occasion.”