ATTITUDE TO WAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 114, 16 May 1942, Page 5

ATTITUDE TO WAR

OUTWORN TRADITIONS

LEASE-LEND CHIEF'S VIEWS

(0.C.)

SYDNEY, May 13.

Addressing the American Society at luncheon at the Hotel Australia, Mr. W. S. Wasserman, U.S. LeaseLend chief in Australia, said the United Nations beaten so far in the war because they were still thinking in terms of previous wars. He said: "We have the habit of two-dimensional warfare when it has become three, with the third —the air—the most important. Our enemies have won because they were the first to recognise the change and because they were willing to scrap out-worn traditions and leaders, and put into command young men unafraid to use new technique."

Dealing with post-war opportunities, Mr. Wasserman said there seemed to be merely a feeling that we would have to make the best of a changed world instead of realisation that we would have a chance to really make a better world for everybody. He added: "I wish that every one of our soldiers could feel that he is fighting not only to ward off the evils of slavery and defeat, but to make a world that offers hope and freedom for all of mankind, and, when I talk of freedom I talk of freedom not only in the sense of the concept of the word that we have been accustomed to, meaning freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to change our rulers when we see fit, but also two new types of freedom that are equally important —freedom from fear of want, a sense of the obligation of man to man, freedom from any tyranny that man tries to impose ort man, including the tyranny of government. Mr. Wasserman said that he was hoping, and here he was speaking purely as a private citizen, that America would have learned a few lessons from the failures of the victory of the last war, and from the experience of this war. He concluded: "I hope that the technique of lend-lease may enable us to accept the responsibility of taking a large part of our international incomes in goods, and to be prepared to make continuing loans in the shape of material, with a small return over a long period of years, because we can maintain a high standard of living for ourselves if we are prepared to do our share in expanding world trade and in developing the less developed regions of the world.