NATIONAL DISCIPLINE

Evening Star, Issue 25617, 18 October 1945, Page 4

NATIONAL DISCIPLINE

AN ESSENTIAL OF DEMOCRACY APPLICATION TO POST-WAR PROBLEMS URGENT (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 18. " Some jpople imagine that discipline is somethinc inconsistent with democracy, but if we are to surmount the difficulties that lie ahead of us as a nation and an Empire, we have got to exercise a great deal of discipline," said Commodoro G. H. Faulkner, D.S.C.. R.N., Chief of the New Zealand Naval Staff, addressing the Wellington branch of the Royal Society of St. George at its commemoration of Trafalgar Day last night. The same aualities that won the victory at Trafalgar had won the victory again for Britain, and would more than ever be essential in winning the peace. Chief among those qualities was discipline. Many people imagined discipline to involve arrogance in giving orders and subservience in acceptance of them. People's minds ran to punishment as an essential part of discipline, but that was absurd.

" I can't see how we are going to get over post-war problems unless we have some form of national discipline, and unless we are able to maintain it," he said, amid applause. " Another of the lessons of Trafalgar is that unless we get the spirit into the British people of putting national welfare before personal advantage, we are not going to achieve any success in the years of peace that lie ahead."