Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1942. LOYAL EFFORT AND LEADERSHIP.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 September 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1942. LOYAL EFFORT AND LEADERSHIP.

'J'IIERE can be nothing else than full’ agreement with the denunciation by the Acting-Prime Minister (Mr Sullivan) of the folly of those people who talk, as he says some reported in the Press have talked recently, as though the danger of the war had passed so far as this country is concerned. It would be a poor intelligence which did not perceive that the future safety and security of New Zealand and of all other free nations are dependent, not only on. the decisive defeat of the aggressive dictatorships, European and Asiatic, now endeavouring to destroy us, but upon the continuing and constructive effort that will still be demanded when that defeat has been accomplished.

If the peace to which we aspire is to be worth winning, it must open the way to prompt and resolute action by the United Nations, not only in policing the world against any recrudescence of aggression, but in laying at least secure foundations of a better world order. There are no slack and easy days in prospect for any free nation worthy of the name. Rather it is to be expected that the spiritual and material resources of these nations will be taxed to the utmost for many a year to come in order that the sacrifices now being made on the fighting' fronts and behind them, and the cruel martyrdom of brave peoples overcome by brute force, may not have been made and endured in vain.

Whatever may be the immediate outlook in the Pacific —a matter in which, on account of the obscuring fog of war, there is some room for conjecture and for difference of opinion—the fate of New Zealand will continue to be vitally at stake until the war as a whole and the peace have been won. In an outlook even moderately enlightened there can be nothing else than full agreement with the Acting-Prime Minister when he appeals to all his fellow-countrymen not to listen to those who say our danger has passed and with his further declaration: —

Most definitely it is with us still, and only the utmost we can do in every field will be enough to give us a chance of survival.

That being said, it may be added that an all-important factor in promoting the full-powered effort that undoubtedly is demanded is direct, courageous and sternly purposeful leadership. The Government is clothed with extraordinary powers—such powers as would never have been conceded but for a very wide and general perception throughout the community of the gravity of the emergency by which we are faced. If these powers, are used fearlessly and with full vigour there will be no difficulty in overcoming the elements of resistance to which Mr Sullivan referred.

It is perhaps characteristic of ns as a people that the heaviest demands of the war —those made upon our manhood for fighting' service, and upon some women and girls as well as men for auxiliary service—have been met more readily than others which involve less serious hardship and sacrifice. The Acting-Prime Minister mentioned, for example, the stabilisation of wages and prices. This, he said, was something urgently necessary if disaster and suffering were to be avoided and everybody agreed with it in principle, but: —

Most people resist its specific application to themselves at the point where they must give up something to achieve it. Here again, the essential need disclosed is for bold and resolute leadership. The Government at times has been weak-kneed in policy and administration bearing on stabilisation. It has contributed to inflation by making or permitting wage increases to sections of the population instead of concentrating undividedly on the stabilisation of prices. At the moment of writing it is open to the charge of failing to deal resolutely with an altogether unjustifiable mining strike in the Iluntly district —a strike which is hampering the national war effort and causing economic hardship and dislocation in other ways.

If the Government in these matters and others will give the right lead and take the right action, there will be little enough need for concern over the elements of resistance and “rebellion” of which Mr Sullivan spoke and there will be a correspondingly closer approach to the fully rounded and complete war effort which a common sense regard for our future as a people very obviously demands.