THE FUTURE THEY FIGHT FOR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 33, 9 February 1943, Page 2

THE FUTURE THEY FIGHT FOR

TJTVE months ago an able correspondent of the New York Times, Byron Darnton," wrote the last dispatch he was to write before he was killed in an accident. Having fought in France in 1918, he was able to compare the conditions there with the conditions in Papua, and also to note the differences in the thinking of soldiers in the last war and in this. '"The young men who art doing our fighting," he said, "are to a surprising extent thinking about the war's end, not only in terms of getting back to their wives and sweethearts and getting away from danger and discomfort. They are thinking also in terms of what kind of world we shall have after peace comes. They are thinking realistically. . . . The politician who preaches 'normalcy' at the end of this war will find some hard-headed opposition. He will find these men assured and matured beyond their years. He will find that they have fully learned the lesson that two wars in 25 years have taught. He will find that they want, not national escape to irresponsibility, but peacetime compulsory service for youths now growing up. . . . He will find a gi eater love of peace than ever and with it a realisation that peace is not automatic but must be secured. These, I believe, are the views of the fighting men." No correspondent with New Zealand servicemen abroad has written in similar vein—or, if he has, his message has not survived the censorship—but even if no private letters were being received, from the Middle East, from Britain and from many another place where our men serve, we need have no doubt that their views are substantially the same as those indicated in the foregoing quotation. For New Zealand, too has for the second thne in 25 years, sent men. to far countries to tight, ana some of them have been the same men. It would be strange if they, like these Americans in Papua, have not a larger vision of what they are fighting for, strange if the New Zealand of their dreams is not something different, something finer and stronger, than the New Zealand they left. Yet what sign is to be seen that the political parties which struggle for the right to shape the future of New Zealand are even touched by the same vision? The basic foundation of social security is national security, which cannot be ensured without an adequate population, a foreign policy and armed forces. On none of these subjects had the spokesmen of the political parties in Christchurch East much to say. Mr. Holland, it is true, spoke of "planning for a greatly increased population"—"five million neople within ten or fifteen years"—which would require the increase to be made at the minimum rate of 230,000 a year, or more than the Dominion's total; net immigration in the last 50 years. A plan for immigration (or for birth increase plus immigration, which Mr. Holland seems to have had in mind) should bear some relation to realities. But neither Mr. Holland nor the Prime Minister, who ought to know full well by now the difficulties and the costs —to say nothing of the dangers —of creating armed forces after war has started, had anything to say about future defence and foreign policy. Was the omission due to negligence, or to a belief that their honest conclusions on these subjects might be politically unpopular? Defence is costly, and money spent on defence will not be available for what is called "raising the standard of living." Defence, adequate defence, also involves the ideas of duty, hard work, social responsibility, national service; it. conflicts with the ideas of national high living, pleasure, go-as-you-please, and the-State-will-provide, which have been politically profitable in the past. But unless we are greatly mistaken, these are the ideas—duty, work, responsibility, national .service—which a great many people in this country as well as our servicemen abroad are to-day valuing more highly than before, and wish to see emphasised, sincerely, by those who would be their political rulers in the future. Until such a change occurs in politics, politicians are likely to be dismayed -by such experiences as that of Christchurch East, where the non-voters topped the poll.