STRAIN OF WAR

Evening Star, Issue 25226, 13 July 1944, Page 7

STRAIN OF WAR

NEW ZEALAND'S REACTION DANGER OF REGIMENTATION (Special.) WELLINGTON, July W. " I would like to say a few words with regard to the-opinion we.hear expressed occasionally that New Zealand has not realised that there is a war raging," said Mr H. F. Nicoll in his presidential address to the New Zealand Trotting Conference. " There is possibly some surface justification in that statement, since it is true that we have not experienced the horrors of air raids, or had to stand in food queues, or suffer in blackouts, but there is a lack of perception in this criticism of our people. Their life to-day, like the rest of the world, is suspended, and the toll taken of a young country in this marking time is ? in many • ways, greater than the strain imposed, on the older world. The whole significance of this Dominion in the past has rested in the freedom and opportunity of the individual to expand and develop initiative, and to make enterprising use of his independence added to the high value he placed on those privileges. At the present time nearly all'of this is removed from him and little given to take its place. There are few traditions or ancient customs to spur him to his destiny, no martial display or sound of guns to .quicken his imagination—only the bitter ache of parting and bereavement, and the routine of regulations. " The sharp and positive proximity of danger is infinitely more stimulating than the negative advantages which undoubtedly abound in New Zealand. If, beneath all this, the New Zealander is still cheerful and optimistic, I for one would give him credit. This is not to minimise the perils of complacency, only that I do not think it is more conspicuous in our nation than in others; the deadly danger of complacency is present in all the democracies, and certainly those who are remote from the fighting "need most to _ guard against this insidious folly. Let "us, therefore, arm ourselves with a dual purpose, to beware of the quicksands of wishful thinking. and at the same time nourish our spirit of enter- j prise. All the resolute vigour and intelligence of which we are capable will be required in the difficult years that lie ahead, ! to meet the great problems that await us. " In the past five years of the war we | have been hemmed around and fettered by ; regulations and prohibitions which the people have accepted as a national necessity. It would be well for us to consider how deep and narrow is the groove to which

Iwe have accustomed ourselves and how short might be the step from the trained submission of to-day to the mass indifference of to-morrow, that arch enemy of progress and perhaps the greatest single cause of the present world calamity,"