Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1942. AN EARLY AND OPEN SESSION.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 March 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1942. AN EARLY AND OPEN SESSION.

'J'HERE is likely to be general approval of the Prime Minister’s announcement that Parliament will be called together at an earlier date than March 19 if (he situation in Java becomes more serious, and that : The course of the war throughout the world generally and particularly in the Pacific, with special reference to New Zealand's part, will be discussed frankly in open session, similar to the debates that have taken place recently in the British House of Commons. There can be no objection to Mr Fraser’s reservation that some information which would be of service to the enemy can be discussed only in secret. As the war is developing at the the moment there is, however, a good deal which can be and should be discussed in the open. Something has been said about the anxiety awakened in this country and in Australia by the late turn-of events in the Pacific and particularly the danger that the Japanese may be able, by conquering Java, to surmount yet another barrier to their southward progress. What really matters, however, is that the most should bo made of every means and opportunity of putting the Dominion into the strongest possible state of defence. We have our part and place in the great alliance which has been built up to make an end of totalitarian aggression, and at the same time we are liable to find ourselves attacked as an exposed outpost of the forces of freedom. Our aim as a people evidently must be to defend ourselves with all our power against any dangers that arise, on whatever scale they develop. Tt is certainly right that the Government should be required to satisfy Parliament and the community as a whole that every practicable preparation is being made for defence. There must be full scope for criticism and constructive suggestion. One question hardly to be evaded is whether, in the emergency that exists and is developing, there can be any excuse for failing to establish a National Government, able to claim the undivided support of al] parties in the task of defending the Dominion and prosecuting the war to victory. In any case the weight of opinion in New Zealand undoubtedly is that definite limits should be set to secret session methods. In these unprecedentedly critical days we are entitled as a people to know what our political representatives and leaders are doing and what they are leaving undone. ON SIDE WITH THE NAZIS. the background of established facts, Marshal Petain’s denunciation of the British bombing of the Renault motor works, in the outskirts of Paris, is revealing, though hardly in any fashion he can have intended. “This bloody attack, striking only at'the civilian population,” a statement issued on behalf of the marshal declares, “will arouse general indignation and assume the character of a national catastrophe.” The answer to this and to the parade of decreeing a day of national mourning, is summed up in the observation of the American Assistant Secretary of State, Mr Sumner Welles, that an attack on French factories working for Germany is a legitimate operation of war. It has been shown that the British bombers detailed for that duty clearly identified their targets in occupied France and bombed them accurately, making no attack on civilian areas. These things of course were and are known perfectly to the Vichy Government and Marshal Petain’s statement is branded accordingly as entirely bogus—a particularly unpleasant example of blatant hypocrisy. At the same time it is something more. It shows not only that Marshal Petain is attempting to cover up his own guilt and that of his colleagues by making false charges against Britain, but that he is prepared to allow himself to be use of by the Nazis who are deliberately and obviously intent on destroying France as a nation. Marshal Petain’s pretended protest is nothing else than propaganda in aid of and on behalf of the Nazis. It must be concluded either that he is voluntarily and deliberately playing the Nazi game, or that he is an entirely helpless puppet in their hands. Had he remained silent, it might have been supposed that he was acquiescing unwillingly in the use of French factories for the manufacture of German war material. His manifestly insincere protest suggests, for what it is worth, that he desires that French workers should be compelled to build tip the military Strength of the deadly enemies of France.