UNITY AND AN "ALL-IN" EFFORT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 49, 26 August 1941, Page 6

UNITY AND AN "ALL-IN" EFFORT

MAN IN THE STREET,

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The average man will have nothing but praise for the speech delivered by the Hon.- W. Perry in the Legislative Council in favour of a War Cabinet with executive power and including men, frQm both inside and outside Parliament, and also for his stirring plea for an all-in war effort. Unfortunately, in the column next to the account of his speech there was a definite statement, as given in the House by the Minister of Health, that? the Government intends to introduce a Bill this session to force the medical men to come into the social security scheme. Now, how is it possible for people, however much they may wish to do so, to give their undivided attention-to the war when legislation which they dislike intensely—l am not a doctor—is to be forced upon them while the war is on? How can medical men in particular throw themselves wholeheartedly into their exceedingly important work when what they • regard as a menace to themselves and their profession is, as it were, shaken at them like a big stick? Let us contrast this threat with the fact that before the Prime Minister left for England he extracted a promise from the spiritual leaders that they would not press the matter of religious instruction in schools while the war is on, so that there might be no division of the people. Surely these are methods worthy of Hitler himself. Come, let us have done with all contentious legislation for the present and form a National Government representing all classes and all schools of thought. The people will back it 100 per cent, and we shall then see a real all-in war effort, second only to that of England herself.—l am, etc.,