THE SPIRIT OF HOLLAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 118, 21 May 1941, Page 6

THE SPIRIT OF HOLLAND

New Zealand could have no more welcome guests than the representatives of. the Netherlands Government who are paying us a good-will visit They represent a people who have made a wonderful contribution to the progress of civilisation. Mr. Nash mentioned yesterday, among name? of world fame, Tasman, Erasmus, and Grotius. But it is not only through the achievements of her great men that Holland has won distinction. Her people as a whole have been distinguished for their democracy, their integrity, their industry, and their resolute spirit. They have resisted oppressors and aggressors and they have grappled with Nature to make a wonderful homeland. That homeland is now under the heel of the Nazi oppressor, but a great part of the material resources of the Netherlands remains untouched in tbe wealthy colonies, and the spirit of the Netberlanders is unshaken. It has been subjected to the severest tests —the bombing similar to that experienced by Poland by a,treacherous aggressor at a time when adequate defence could not be provided—and that test is still proceeding. But bombs and machines, as Mr. Nash truly said, cannot triumph over the spirit. Wars are not won only with men and machines. "They are won by attitudes of mind, by human qualities," said Mr. Nash. "Tt is in these human qualities that the Dutch excel, and it is here when the time comes that the world will know that the Dutch people again by their inherent qualities have helped to throw off the foreign oppressor."