Let Us Keep Cool

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 43, 19 April 1940, Page 12

Let Us Keep Cool

ONG before this article is seen by any reader it may have lost all relation to fact. We write, as we must keep on repeating, a week, and sometimes longer, before we publish. But if it continues to be the case that Denmark lies under the heel of Germany, that Germany controls all the ports and railheads of Norway, that Sweden is afraid to mobilise, and that the foundations of Finland’s security have collapsed north and west as well as south and east, it would be foolish to pretend that the situation is not disturbing. It is. But it is also stimulating. For months we have been wondering when the war would become real. Some have even been wondering whether it is necessary and worth while. The situation has been dangerously encouraging to fanatics and mischief-makers, dangerously discouraging to realists. Now all that confusion has passed. We know where we stand. The limits of German tyranny may not have been reached, but the end of British complacency certainly has been. We are not merely blind and deaf if we require further evidence of the necessity of winning the war. We are too soft and simple to survive. But there are almost none in that category any longer. We not only know where we stand, we know what we feel. Our nerves and muscles have came tight. If we must suffer, we will; but we will not bicker and wobble and ask why we are fighting. We can get along now without a formula. Our war aim is to smash the German machine before it smashes Europe and liberty. There will be time enough afterwards, and sorrow and humility enough, to bring us to peace. In the meantime we must not weaken our hands by overheating our heads. Victory is a long way off. We shall not bring it nearer by rushing violently down a steep place. We have men. We have materials. The enemy himself has flood-lit the goal. We shall reach it by using our strength relentlessly and our reason calmly. Fortune favours the brave who keep cool.