LOYAL RESOLUTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 January 1942, Page 5

LOYAL RESOLUTION

DEMANDED OF THE PEOPLE OF NEW ZEALAND SIR C. NEWALL’S NEW YEAR BROADCAST. TRIBUTE TO THE FIGHTING SERVICES. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “It will be a year of the gravest import to New Zealand and to the British Empire. What it holds in store for us cannot be foretold, but this at least can be said with certainty: that the whole future happiness of mankind depends on the loyalty, the courage, and the unselfishness of each and every one of us in the days that lie immediately ahead.” With these words the Governor-General, Sir Cyril Newall, began his New Year message, broadcast on Wednesday night. Declaring that we must be ready to meet good news or bad news, triumph or disaster and to look grief and suffering and death, if need be, calmly in the eyes, his Excellency continued: “There is only one way to achieve this end, and that is by sacrifice, sacrifice of time, of money, of comfort, of personal ambition, of income and of profit. Sacrifice of everything which, does not contribute to the defeat of our enemies. The time is past when we can say ‘Business as usual.’ The routine needs of human life must be met, but everything that is not essential must be swept aside. This does not mean that we should sit and mope. Far from it. We must keep our bodies fit, our minds alert, and our spirits high. But it does mean that one aim alone must dominate all our thoughts and all our actions, the shortest road to victory. “Our responsibilties are immense, but our opportunity is greater. Let us seize the chance to prove that we are worthy of all the courage and toil and blood and sweat that have won for us the freedom in which we have been nurtured. Let us seize the chance to be remembered down the years among the men and women who saved civilisation.

“Throughout the struggle we have one inestimable advantage. We can say with absolute certainty and in all humility that God is with us. That knowledge, however, must serve not as a shield behind which we can claim sanctuary, but as a spur to our endeavours. There is no doubt that right will triumph in the end, but it is for us to prove that we are worthy to be the instrument of that triumph. . . . The thoughts of all of us go out to those men and women of New Zealand who are serving their King with the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, and the Merchant Navy. In every corner of the globe they are willingly risking everything for us. It is unthinkable that we should evade a lesser sacrifice than theirs. Their heroism is our inspiration. Our gratitude for what they arc doing for us is too deep for words; it can only be expressed by what we do ourselves.”