BRITISH RENASCENCE

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21207, 2 September 1940, Page 6

BRITISH RENASCENCE

New Zealand’s Parliament marked the passing of the first year of the war by reaffirming its intention to continue the struggle for liberty side by side with Britain, and by expressing admiration of the conduct of the British people in their hour of trial. There has been no more eventful year in the world’s history. The rise and fall of nations and the clash of arms have been terrific, but no greater or more significant than the revolution in the hearts and minds of men. This amazing metamorphosis applies more particularly to the people of the British Empire, for the totalitarian peoples are but continuing the rule of force that drove them on in the years before the war. In the short space of a year, Britons at home and abroad have become a new nation. Appeasers and pacifists, who were reluctant to believe that the Nazi menace was the foul thing it has proved to be, have thrown off their lethargy and vain trust in the sanity of the enemy and become fighters all. They had humbled themselves and their friends before the might of Hitler. They were prepared to give much and to swallow their pride to save the world from a cataclysm. But in vain. Their supplications were contemptuously cast aside as evidence of weakness, and Hitler raved because it had always been his fate to have to deal with weaklings. The blow fell and the policy of appeasement was killed overnight. Britain and her friends faced the stark reality of war dictated by the man who had humbled and derided them. Their meekness disappeared in a flash, and though they started with a tragic handicap in arms they were no longer hampered by false belief that reason would prevail. But the beast rampaged through Europe and crushed a dozen nations underfoot. He was prepared and his enemies were not. Now Britain stands alone, but not friendless. The attitude of every Briton is the very antithesis of fearful appeasement. There is no longer the slightest doubt that the only way back to sanity and peace is over a road covered with blood. That road was not taken lightly, and there can be no turning back until the task is accomplished. This transformation from pacifism to indigant militarism has not been brought about without the most far-reaching changes in the lives and minds of the British people. Besides a crusade of deadly earnest it is a renascence which will mark an epoch in the annals of the race. And so the British Empire embarks upon the second year of the war. No puling subservience now; no attempt to associate with or tolerate the evil of Nazidom. It is war until the evil is exterminated.