CALL TO DOMINION FOR SUPREME EFFORT IN AIDING BRITAIN

Evening Star, Issue 26184, 20 August 1947, Page 4

CALL TO DOMINION FOR SUPREME EFFORT IN AIDING BRITAIN

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, August 20. • A call for a supreme national effort by all New Zealanders to assist Jn saving the. greatest country the world had ever known—Great —even if it were necessary to work night and day to do so, was made by the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, opening the " Aid to Britain " conference of nearly 200 delegates and observers at Parliament Buildings this morning. Mr Fraser said that Britain had mortgaged her future to save mankind, and we should be as proud to assist her in her present crisis as when New Zealand soldiers in the Dover Command stood ready to repel the invader from Britain s shores. Mr Fraser told the conference that while we must submerge our own interests at the moment in Britain’s cause, it was important to our own economy, our living standards, and our trade that Britain should recover. Whatever we did would be bread cast upon the waters which would return a thousandfold to us later. It would be an overwhelming disaster, economically, politically, and in other ways for New Zealand if Britain went down. The conference, which should be a memorable one, ■should issue an appeal which would rally all New Zealanders to an individual and collective, effort to discharge fb the utmost our responsibility to aid Britain. Whatever could be done by . New Zealand and the other dominions would establish the British Commonwealth more firmly than ever before. Supporting the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr S. G. Holland, said he hoped his presence at the conference would be an indication of the unanimity between the main political parties in the desire to help Britain. He urged that there should be no spirit of defeatism in the conference’s deliberations and determinations. The National Party was behind the Government “ boots and all ” in seeking a solution to the problems confronting Britain.