“BRITAIN WILL WIN”

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21364, 7 March 1941, Page 8

“BRITAIN WILL WIN”

GRIM TASK AHEAD APPEAL FOR SACRIFICES (special to Times) NEW PLYMOUTH, Friday “I am convinced that Britain will emerge victorious but not before she has put everything in and been tested almost to the limit,” said Sir Harry Batterbee, High Commissioner in New Zealand for the United Kingdom, when speaking at New Plymouth. Sir Harry said that he was convinced that Nazi power was shortly going to make desperate efforts both against Britain and along the Mediterranean. The next few months were going to be the most critical in the history of the British Empire. If trouble came to the Pacific, the people of New Zealand, Sir Harry was sure, would meet any threat in the same confident spirit as the people in Britain, but, in the meantime, it was well to be prepared for any eventuality. “Is it, I wonder, fully realised that in Britain people are able to eat only lour ounces of butter and a shilling’s worth of meat a week?” he asked. “Is it known that sweets and chocolates and even silk stockings are no longer purchasable? Conserving Fetrol “In New Zealand there is no question of going without food or necessities, but I am going to ask you now to do without every non-essential item that comes from overseas. After all, it is hardly fair for you to go on buying what yftur kinsfolk at Home are doing without.”* The essential need of conserving shipping space was stressed by Sir Harry, who then pointed to petrol as one of the commodities purchased overseas that should be used with the utmost care. Pleasure motoring, he said, could scarcely be justified in view of he risks of importation and difficulties of supply. He felt it was wrong for one gallon to be needlessly used at a time when a crisis was looming ahead and when the fate of the country might depend upon its reserves of motive power.