WAR REALITIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 131, 30 November 1939, Page 14

WAR REALITIES

NEW ZEALAND'S PART

MUST DO MORE THAN SELL

PRODUCE

SACRIFICE NEEDED

New Zealand's part in the war could not be confined, as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, to sending home butter and wool and getting- paid for it, said Mr. C. R. Edmond, addressing members of the V.M.C.A. Optimists' Club today.

"We should, I think, realise more and more the pride of belonging to the British Commonwealth of Nations," said Mr. Esmond. "Today we are at war, and today we will all have to do something towards the prosecution of the war, and we will have to make a saciifice. It is no use our thinking that we are going to send more butter and wool to England and get paid for it, and that that is going to be our contribution towards winning the war. That cannot be. 'We will be called upon to make personal sacrifices, and if argood thing is worth having it is worth fighting for and holding* "Today we in New Zealand have not realised the complete implications of the present world situation. As I was leaving England about eight days before war was declared, they were then'facing up to the reality of the fact that war was coming, and the general feeling was just a sense of relief. After living under a threat of war foxthree years the people had come to the i conclusion ttiat war would be better than living under that threat, and they had made ■up .their minds that they would see the thing through. . THE SPIRIT OF ENGLAND. "The spirit of the people of England was simply marvellous. They did not want'the war, but they felt that life without liberty was not life at all, and'life with liberty was worth fighting for. "We. in' New Zealand have got to get a better glimpse of that spirit, and in- getting that glimpse we have to realise that we'are part and parcel of the British Commonwealth, and to sustain that position we will necessarily have to do our share. We did it last time." Those in England were looking to the future with confidence, said4 Mr. Edmond, and they were quite certain that, because they' were Englishmen, they would come through any trial and tribulation, even those of a great war.