The Bread-Line
HE decision to launch a voluntary food-saving campaign for the hungry overseas is a decision to trust New Zealand’s moral fibre. Cynics could indeed find some amusement in the fact that the Churches voted for compelling us to give and the Labour Unions for persuading us; but even cynics hesitate to make jokes at the expense of people who are starving to death. We sacrifice ourselves to save them, whatever we think of the procedure, or we sink into a destitution of our own that is worse than theirs. For the problem is moral from beginning to end. No one believes that we have no food to spare in New Zealand. We know that we have a great deal to spare if we are willing to surrender it-more every day and every meal than we require to maintain health; and that health is the only justifiable standard in a world facing famine on a hemispheric scale. Therefore the question is whether the people of New Zealand are sound enough
morally to do their duty. The Government thinks that they are and has decided to trust them, but it has not made that decision lightly. Nor has the Federation of Labour made it lightly. It must know that success can be guaranteed by the Unions and by no other single section of the community. If they rise to the occasion-it means rising a little higher than other people since the most keenly felt sacrifices will have to be made in their ranksfood will start flowing to Britain in a stream worthy of so fortunate a country. If on the other hand we have a clamour for equality of sacrifice (which is achieved when a ship sinks with all hands but hardly ever by less drastic means) the campaign will fail as a voluntary effort and we shall find ourselves doing compulsorily and in shame what we were not big enough to do gladly and freely. So the question really is, Are the cynics and selfish humbugs right, or have we enough character left to make fools of them instead of forever allowing them to make fools of us? In other words, have we a moral as well as a material margin in New Zealand, or have we reached the moral bread-line?
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 353, 29 March 1946, Page 5
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382The Bread-Line New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 353, 29 March 1946, Page 5
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