Loss Of War-time Ideals Seen

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30115, 26 April 1963, Page 14

Loss Of War-time Ideals Seen

New Zeilanders gave up self-interests to fight for the survival of their community in time of war, but as soon as peace came they gave up those ideals, said the Dean of Christchurch (the Very Rev. W. A. Pyatt) in his address at the citizens’ Anzac Day service in the King Edward Barracaks. For co-operation in war, New Zealanders swopped "every man for himself” and “I’m all right, Jack.” For comradeship, that very sweet by-product of war, New Zealanders swopped the law of the jungle in ambition and ruthlessness. Dean Pyatt said he wished that New Zealanders would stop smugly wrapping up themselves in a comfortable little white bastion down here in South-east Asia. “I wish we had opened our doors much more widely in the last 15 years to give home and a new start to many thousands more people of all races and colours.” he said. “I w’ish that we'd been big enough in character to share the great prosperity we have enjoyed in the last few years. 1 wish that, we as a nation had given ourselves away in the service of peace, as we did in the service of war. Then we as a nation might have been more worthy of the sacrifices made on our behalf in two wars." “Have Not Kept Faith” Dean Pyatt said that New Zealand as a nation, and New Zealanders as individuals, had not kept faith with the men they honoured on Anzac Day “We were prepared as a nation to make great sacrifices 20 years ago,” he said ‘‘But what real sacrifice do we make for peace among the nations now? The bold concept of the Colombo Plan —that great and exciting experiment—and the £lm, £2m. £3m a year towards it And £lm a day on the geegees. each time there is a race meeting

“1 am not against folk who want their amusements in that way—but it is all so frantically out of proportion I wish we could be called, as a nation, to make the same sacrifices for peace as we did for war"

Dean Pyatt said that there should be a new ideal of determination That determination should be: “Please

God, my own needs and selfishness are not going to come first. This is going to be a better New Zealand, a better world, because I have been in it” Younger Generation Dean Pyatt said it was getting harder for young people to recognise what all the Anzac Day fuss was about. Middle-aged people, he thought, must not expect the emotional experience of war that they had to be shared by the younger generation. It was very much a moot point where Anzac Day was best kept in its present form, as a great time of reunion for one section of the community and enforced, uncreative idleness for many, who had no emotional link with it. War was an appalling thing, but when war came, men were found who were ready to give their lives for the rest of their fellows. Such sentences as ‘They died that we might live” had been said so often that they had lost their sting, but no matter how often they were said they remained true. “It is under the umbrella of what these men did that we are free to pursue our lives now, whether we be a National or Labour man, or whether we be a pacifist or a Communist. You are free to be that just because men went out to die.” he said.