War Aims

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 71, 1 November 1940, Page 6

War Aims

T is a good sign in general that questions are being asked about our war aims; but only in general. Some of those who ask why we are fighting ask because they are gbstructionists and are annoyed that we are fighting at all. They are certainly not bewildered patriots asking because they do not know. They do know. So do the rest of us. A few dreamers, a few pedants, a few fanatical idealists may still be sighing for a formula, but the average man is as clear in his mind about the war as he is about his work, and a great deal clearer than he has ever been about most of life’s problems. He knows that if he doesn’t work he will not eat, and he realises as clearly, and much more painfully, that if he doesn’t fight he will not remain free. It is either defeatism or the most dangerous of all brands of subversion to say that he doesn’t know why he is fighting, or what he is fighting for. Even if he did not know he knows what he is fighting against. He has ears and eyes. The radio services of the world overtake lies told in print, and the printed opinions of trained correspondents correct the extravagances of the air. Never in history before has it been possible to follow a war from day to day, and even from hour to hour, and to know that we are never very far from the truth; but it is possible in this war. We don’t require to be scholars or to possess second sight to know what Germany has done to average men in Europe, Mr. Churchill did not tell the whole story when he declared the other day that we are fighting for survival. But he told the only part of it that need agitate us for a month or two. The time may come when we can fight two wars at once-Hitler’s and our most advanced thinkers’; but it has not come yet. It is as well to remember too that dead men tell no tales at all, and do not often build brave new worlds.