HARDEST PART YET

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 19, 23 January 1943, Page 4

HARDEST PART YET

YEAR OF OFFENSIVES

"After more than three years of defensive warfare, three grim and perilous years in which we had to concentrate all our efforts in order to hold on, the picture has suddenly changed," said the GovernorGeneral, Sir Cyril Newall, speaking at Waimate this week, reports the Christchurch "Press." "The news from every battlefront has improved tremendously, and today we can look forward with confidence to a year of great offensives. "But let no one imagine for a moment that we are out of the wood yet," said his Excellency; "the hardest part of the struggle still lies ahead. The enemy is still strong and powerful. He still has a stranglehold on vast areas from which he must be driven. The days that lie ahead will demand our! full endeavour and unflinching sacrifice. "The immediate threat to New Zealand itself has diminished. It has been found possible to relax the black-out restrictions and fire-fighting precautions. In many ways it might seem that the war is receding further and further from these shores; but such a view would be short-sighted in the extreme. The future happiness of the people of this Dominion—the happiness that is of your own children —is still being fought for in Africa, in Russia, in China, in the Solomons, in Europe, and on all the seven seas. "I know that it is difficult, in this beautiful countryside, to realise the grim fact that we are fighting for our lives. It is perhaps especially difficult when the news is good. A DEBT OF GRATITUDE. "The men of the New Zealand Division, your own husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers, have written new and glorious pages in the history of human courage and endurance. Our pride in them, and our gratitude to them, is too deep for words. We can only fittingly express it by our actions. We must remember all the time what they are suffering for us, what sacrifices they are making and have made for us. We owe them a debt which can never fully be repaid. "But this at least we can do—we can support them loyally at home by working with a united will for victory. Let all of us, therefore, examine ourselves carefully and make certain : that we are doing all we can to furI ther the defeat of our enemies and to ease the burden of our fighting men. "Let us make certain that there is nothing we are leaving undone which we might do to help the cause; that we are doing nothing which can hinder it. Let us see to it that we are not letting any personal prejudices or private ambitions stand in the way of taking our full share of the common burden. Let us unite as we have never united before."