Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1943. THE NEED FOR LOYAL UNITY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1943. THE NEED FOR LOYAL UNITY.

THE principles in accordance with which the war effort of this country should be governed and directed have been stated very well by the Prime Minister (Mr Eraser) in his Christmas message. It cannot but be agreed that a. loyal combination of effort by all sections of the community is essential to a full-powered war effort and that, as Mr Eraser said : —

The immediate and sometimes selfish interests of this or that section must be subordinated to the interests of our war effort, which carries with it not only the highest good of all our people, but the hope of the world.

The Prime Minister declared also that “any section of Hie people who imagine the war is already won and that they can now slack oi-push their own. demands recklessly and without consideration of the effect on the country or ils war effort, are simply Jiving in a fool’s paradise*, and if the cause of democracy is to be defended, must and will be met with firm resistance from the Government.” As a, .statement of the standards that ought Io be maintained, this is admirable, but the Government should lie, and no doubt eventually will, be judged not by whal it says about these vital matters, but. by what it does about them. In dealing witJi the gas industry hold-up which has occurred in Auckland, the Government has an opportunity of giving practical effect and expression, to the principles the Prime Minister has proclaimed. Whatever the detail issues in which it originated, this strike clearly is a deplorable departure from that loyally united support, of the Avar effort which rightly is demanded of all sections of the community.

Apart from the widespread inconvenience and hardship it occasions, the hold-up is hindering or interrupting, more or less seriously, certain branches of war production. This dot's not raise any immediate threat to the security of the Dominion, but it involves a reduction of'the national war effort which quite possibly may work, out in a needless sacrifice of life in the battle areas in, which'the members of our fighting forces are concentrating undividedly on the task of defeating the enemy, without thought or question of the hardships or dangers that task involves.

The heavy responsibility resting on the Government in matters of this kind is defined very plainly. .It is the primary duty of tlie Government to see to it that the burdens and sacrifices the war effort entails are apportioned as equitably as possible, so that no section may be in. a. position to assert that it is being treated unfairly as compared with others. There follows imperatively the duty of taking instant, positive and resolute action against an attempt- by any section to interfere with or in any degree curtail or- weaken the national, war effort. This, as the Prime Minister has said justly, “.is essential even in the interests of those wtio, thoughtlessly or selfishly, are prepared to betray their country, the mew fight ing on the various fronts, the underfed millions of our kith and kin in Britain, and the cause of the United Nations.” It remains for the Government to give effect to the principles enunciated by Mr Fraser on its behalf.