Let Us Keep Our Heads

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 12, 15 September 1939, Page 12

Let Us Keep Our Heads

ORALISTS tell us that the first casualty in every war is truth. The second is apt to be common sense. We are all so anxious to do our war duty that we forget the other duties on which success finally depends. It is certainly the case in New Zealand, as in every other part of the Empire, that our over-riding duty is to win the war at the earliest possible date. It is a task that calls for all our courage, all our patience, all our intelligence, all our energy. But this does not mean that every man must become a soldier and every woman a nurse. It does not mean bringing the economic machine to a standstill, or deliberately slowing it down. It means going on with our jobs — holding to our ploughs, and even to our pens-until it is clear that we can be more usefully employed. We can in fact not win a war by any other method. Wars are won by civilians as well as by soldiers; by food and clothes and good health as well as by nitro-glycerine and steel; above all, by calm and sober minds. In this respect we have begun well in New Zealand, and been directed well, but it is imperative that we should continue well, and not be stampeded by excited patriots into premature activities that hinder more than they help. Every citizen should take it for granted that he will be called on for special duty if special duty is required of him. So much was learnt in our last war that it is not necessary to begin to-day where we began in 1914. Instead of supposing that the authorities are taking the emergency too calmly, we should realise that the emergency was met in a hundred ways before it arrived. Business as usual can be a sordid aim worthy only of hucksters and rogues. It is at present a high form of patriotism.