Help for Britain

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 427, 29 August 1947, Page 5

Help for Britain

HE purpose of the Conference in Parliament Buildings last week was to consider how to help Britain, not how much to No New Zealander doubts at he should help to the limit of his resources-now, and until the crisis passes. But no New Zealander will help as recklessly as that. If it had been at all likely that we would help to our last penny and our last ounce of energy it would not have been necessary for the Prime Minister "to call people together at all. But we are nearly all foolish and selfish. It requires all that the Government can do, all that preaching and example can do, to switch our minds away from our own immediate comforts and needs, Further, until we had it from Mr. Attlee himself what Britain’s most urgent needs were, we could give ourselves reasons for doing very little. But we now know, not only how grave the crisis is, and how long it is likely to last, but what things we should. do first if we are really going to fight by Britain’s side. They are not unexpected things, and not one of them is beyond our present capacity: more food, food at the lowest possible price, a quicker turnround of shipping, and no more imports than we can pay for as we go. We can do everything that Britain asks, and a good deal more, without endangering our ‘own economy at a single critical point, On the positive side we have to work harder and produce more; on the negative side to live harder and consume less. Both of these contributions we can make without an approach to the austerity Britain has accepted every day since the beginning of the war. Therefore we must make them. The message from Britain was /AZent at our request. It was sub_dued and diffident, but entirely steady and calm. There was not a word of criticism in it, not a note of complaint. But the dullest among us knows that we would be permanently disgraced if Britain called and New Zealand did not answer.