DESERVES SUPPORT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 56, 7 March 1942, Page 5

DESERVES SUPPORT

EVACUATION PLAN

RETURNED SOLDIER'S VIEW

"The Controller of Evacuation for the E.P.S. in Auckland deserves the support of every citizen, not only in Auckland, but of New Zealand," stated Mr. E. L. Thwaites, Dominion president of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. Association, to-day. In the short time at his disposal) since his appointment, he added, Mr. Lovegrove had evolved machinery and organisation which, as had been proved over and over again, was as vital to the welfare of our women and children as the proper functioning of our armed forces.

Unless the eight points raised by Mr. Lovegrove were immediately settled, said Mr. Thwaites, the whole of the work done would be useless. His report was so comprehensive and the points raised so reasonable and unanswerable that any delay in conferring the powers requested would be fraught with disastrous possibilities. Preparation and #the proper anticipation ot events were not panic, but lack of these might well bring such a result.

"There is no need to subject women and children to needless risk of death and injury, of privation and molestation," Mr. Thwaites continued. "Indeed, it is the immediate duty of the authorities to remove these anxieties from the minds of both our forces overseas and those who will be called on here to bear the burden of attack.

"War is a dreadful thing, but that is no reason wny muddle-headed optimism and lack of foresight should make it any more dreadful than necessary. Th,e controller, in his demand for the powers necessary to avoid needless sacrifice of the lives of women and children, has the unanimous backing of the executive of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. Association, many of them men who have themselves seen the disastrous results of lack of preparation."