EMPIRE SPIRIT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20634, 14 August 1941, Page 9

EMPIRE SPIRIT

CALM COURAGE MR. FRASER CONFIDENT OUTLOOK IN PACIFIC (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Aug. 13, 2.50 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 12. “The situation in the Pacific is certainly serious, but there is still time for wiser counsels to prevail than that of aggression,” said the New Zealand Prime Minister, Mr. P. Fraser, in a broadcast address. “If, despite every effort to maintain peace in the Pacific, the tide of war should reach New Zealand and Australia, I am certain the daughter Dominions will show the same calm and unflinching courage, the same fortitude, and the same deep unyielding determination which has ennobled the Motherland. New Zealand will stand shoulder to shoulder with the United Kingdom to the end, whatever may come, and that end will be victory.” “Nothing can shake it or break it,” said Mr. Fraser describing British unity as he found it. “It will withstand any attack and has grown stronger with each shock.” After paying a tribute to the fortitude of Britain’s bombed-out citizens, Mr. Fraser said the reports circulated abroad about industrial absenteeism and inefficiency created a wrong impression, obscuring in some measure the enormous amount of fine work accomplished. Great work has been done in the fields, factories, workshops, shipbuilding yards, railways, docks, offices and wherever human labour of hand and brain applied to material resources produced raw material or transformed it into commodities to be used to win the war. Mr. Fraser added: “I carry with me to New Zealand the picture of a nation organised in every way for victory. I feel certain that any attempted invasion will be overwhelmed and crushed.”