"MOSTLY VICTORIES"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 279, 25 November 1941, Page 2

"MOSTLY VICTORIES"

PAST YEAR OF WAR

MR. DUFF COOPER'S REVIEW

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Monday. "To-day in the Pacific we do not want war," said the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, speaking at a State luncheon to the Rt. Hon. A. Duff Cooper. "We in New Zealand accent in its entirety the Declaration of the Atlantic, which stands for freedom for all nations, and access to the raw materials of the world for all nations. Before that can be brought about all nations must agree to play the game, and the game is a democraic game and no other." Mr. Duff Cooper said he had seen enough on his brief visit to satisfy him New Zealanders were 100 per cent in the war. The past year had been on the whole one of victories, with the defeat of the German day air offensive, the failure of night raids to smash British morale, the wiping out of the Italian armies in Libya and Abyssinia, and the reduction of submarine sinkings. He would not say that the U-boat menace had passed away, but for this year it had been defeated. Whereas in the summer of last year Britain stood alone, now three of the five great Powers, Britain, Russia and the United States, were ranged on one side. Germany was against them and the fifth was still wavering. The fifth was a Pacific Power more closely concerned than any other, perhaps, with the future of Australia and New Zealand. The world of the Pacific was going to play a far more important part in future than in the past.