DOMINION AT WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 51, 29 February 1940, Page 9

DOMINION AT WAR.

FACT REALISED.

MANY ANXIOUS TO SERVE.

MB. HASH REVIEWS FACTS. I _______ (Bj Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. A statement that New Zealanders fully realised that they were at war, there were 4300 men anxious to be pilote already registered, and it would take four years to train them, that there were nearly 30,000 men registered to go into camp for the Army, that New Zealand had a Forestry Company, a Railway Company and a Maori Battalion, that the Dominion had more men than it could train, and that the third echelon was already complete, was made by the Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Naeh, at the fourth convention dinner at the Exhibition to-night of the New Zealand Society of Accountants.

"I think the central feature of the conflict we are in to-day can justifiably be said to be the right of the people to elect its Parliament," said Mr. Naeh. "I would say it ie not a case of industry, it is not a case of trade, it ie not a case of area. It is not a national issue, but an ethical one, with three forms.

"First ie the question of whether the weak have righto against the strong. Second is the question of scientific research for truth, and third ie the question of the rule of law. Germany hae none of those things to-day."

Best Form of Government. There was nothing as valuable to the English-speaking world at large ae the Parliament 'that founded the British Commonwealth. Without boasting it could be said that no 6tudent could go through the pages of the history of government and even to-day find a better form, of Government than that of the British Empire. In New Zealand, in spite of criticisme that might be levelled againet past and present Governments, it was correct to say that it had set a pattern in connection with freedom of government to the whole of the Commonwealth of Nation* and to the whole world, concluded Mr. Nash.

Replying to the toast of the New Zealand Society of Accountants, the president. Mr. W. R. Brown, asked whether New Zealand realised it was at war. Full realisation of the conflict in 1914 did not enter into the people's consciousness until they read the casualty liete. The manner of the people's living and the small number of wave in which they had been affected did not bring home the war as it did to the people in England.

It was not enough io be loyal or profess loyalty. Something more wae necessary. Work and still more work was needed. It was' not a question of an eight-hour day or a 40-hour week. People must work to the full extent of their capacity. Otherwise expressions of loyalty were mere empty words.