OUR EFFORT IN THE CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 1, 2 January 1943, Page 4

OUR EFFORT IN THE CRISIS

A threat of attack greater than New Zealand has ever before faced brought the war home to the people of this country in the year just closed. Twelve months ago this menace appeared like a bolt from the sky upon people to many of whom the war had seemed disturbing but yet distant. As the months passed and intervening bastions fell, the reality of menace increased. Now, with the threat diminished —at least for the time —we can look back and judge our actions in the crisis. The response of the people was in many ways creditable. It was expressed principally in a call for action and a readiness to answer demands without thought of comfort and convenience. The accelerated mobilisation, often under service conditions imposing considerable hardship, was accepted cheerfully; and the lesser discomforts of business inconvenience, realistic E.P.S. activity, restricted lighting, and intensified prosecution of defence works were also endured with little complaint. Though many people were unaware of the strength of defensive preparations already made—for caution in withholding information from the enemy went near to lessening the confidence of the people—they maintained a calm demeanour. It will always be to the,credit of the Government and people that, in this first experience of near-approaching peril, they maintained a sense of proportion, remembering the greater struggles in the Middle East, arid on the seas, and neither called for the return of New Zealand troops from overseas nor for the diversion to this country of fighting men or material more sorely needed elsewhere. Our first impulse was to help ourselves by all means at our own command. Because we obeyed this impulse, we can without any disposition to make reservations, acknowledge with deep gratitude the assistance that more powerful neighbours, America, Australia, and Britain, have given in making our position more secure. On the credit side we may place this intensified preparation for our own defence* Faults may now be seen and, looking back, critics may say that provision for accommodation and training did not keep pace w|th mobilisation; that it was necessary subsequently to return to industry men whose service there was of greater urgency than in the armed forces; that the cost of some works will not bear But against these faults must fairly be set the pressure of the emergency, when "it was necessary to do things quickly, and time did not permit either elaborate planning or close scrutiny of costs. What will count now is less the mistakes of the past; but a readiness to correct them—to examine anew outuse of man-power and financial, productive, and industrial resources. It has been shown that, under stress of a great need, New Zealand can maintain a great productive effort, achieving what would formerly have been deemed impossible in the supply of munitions and equipment.. The task ahead is to better this effort, to raise the standard of efficiency in all ways —financially and in' the use of labour power and resources. The spur of* near peril is not so great as six months ago, but there can be no relaxation. The powers we mobilised for defence must be added to and used effectively for victory. One debit, .and it was outstanding, was the failure to establish political unity. The attempt was made, sincerely we believe, by the leaders of the two parties, but it was so patched with reservations—principally in the retention of a domestic party Cabinet and the non-surrender of power by the forces behind Labour—that it could not survive a critical test. That test came with the attempt of a section to rise above the law. No matter what excuses may be made as to the emergency of the time, the surrender to this section revealed the essential weakness of the unification scheme— that it was not all-in. A Government of real unity would have faced such a crisis and not have been- broken by it. The frustration of the effort for political unity is the most regrettable feature of the year's record. It indicates the weakness that must be faced and surmounted in the future. By adopting a stabilisation scheme, though it is belated and not wholly equitable because it has been delayed, the Government has set up' a safeguard against the inflation which might hamper our further war effort and eventually cripple rehabilitation policy. But this scheme must be firmly and fairly maintained. A Government of true unity could have supported the scheme without any fear of its being weakened. *A Government which is still largely of one party is not so well insured and must ever be watchful against attempts, through sectional domination, to whittle away the foundation of the plan.