N.Z. RANGED WITHOUT FEAR BY BRITAIN

Northern Advocate, 6 September 1939, Page 9

N.Z. RANGED WITHOUT FEAR BY BRITAIN

Our Cause Worth Sacrifices, Mr Savage States lPer Press Association. Copyright.! •V- ' WELLINGTON. This Day. “BOTH WITH GRATITUDE FOR THE PAST AND WITH CON- ❖ PIDENOE IN THE FUTURE, WE RANGE OURSELVES WITHOUT FEAR BESIDE BRITAIN, ’ ’ SAID THE PRIME MINISTER, MR SAVAGE, IN AN ADDRESS BROADCAST OVER NEW ZEALASTD LAST NIGHT. . Mr Savage spoke from his home, and made his first public address since he underwent a serious operation early last month. “The war on which we are entering may be a long one. demanding from us heavy and continuous sacrifice.” Mr Savage said. “It is essential that we realise from the beginning that our cause is worth the sacrifice.”

No Hatred For Germans, “I believe in all sincerity that it is. None of us has any hatred of the German people. “For the old culture of the Germans, their songs, their poetry and their music, we have nothing but admiration and affection. “We,believe that there are many millions of German people who want to live in peace and quietness as we do, threatening no one, and seeking to dominate no one. “But we know, alas, that such a way of life is despised and rejected by the men who have seized and hold power in Germany. “We know that those men have done, and are doing, incalculable harm to the true interests of their country, and that they are destroying the intellectual, artistic, moral and spiritual resources that their people have built up throughout the centuries.

Work of Destruction

“In doing this they have for the time being cowed the spirit of a vast number of their people. “This work of destruction they have already carried into other countries, and, in spite of denials, now intend to carry into Poland-

“If they succeed there, they will next attempt the overthrow of France and Britain.

“Let us make no mistake about that. “Of course, they repudiate any such intention.

“But, fortunately for the world, we know now what it has taken us a long time to learn: that their promises are worthless, are only made to gain an advantage for the time being, and are broken as soon as that advantage has been secured. “Not a moment too soon have Britain and France taken up arms against so faithless and unscrupulous an adversary. Concerns All Nations. “The fight on which we are now engaged is one whose issue concerns all the nations of the world, whether as yet they realise it or not. “We are fighting a doctrine that springs from a contempt of human nature, a doctrine that government is the affair only of a self-elected elite, who, without consulting the people, may irrevocably determine whdt the people shall do and shall not do.

“The masses are to be used as an instrument of power in the hands of their masters.

“They are to be given slogans and directed towards this or that objective approved by *those masters, but never are they to be treated as free men, as individuals and responsible souls.

Individual Submerged

“The individual man is submerged and forgotten-—the intrinsic worthiness of his personality contemptuously ignored, freedom of action and expression is denied to him, dissent or criticism is brutally repressed. “These are a few of the incidents of the Nazi philosophy that is seeking to-day. to thrust itself everywhere over Europe, and the rest of the world to-morrow.

“Nazism is militant and insatiable paganism. In its short but terrible history it has caused incalculable suffering. If permitted to continue, it will spread misery and desolation throughout the world.

“It cannot be appeased or conciliated. Either it or civilisation must disappear. “To destroy it, but not the great nation which it has so cruelly cheated.

is the task of those who have taken up arms against Nazism. May God prosper those arms. Where Britain Goes, We Go.

“I am satisfied that nowhere will the issue be more clearly understood than in New Zealand, where for almost a century, behind the sure shield of Britain, we have enjoyed and cherished freedom and self-govern-ment.

“Both with gratitude for the past, and with confidence in the future, we range ourselves without fear beside Britain.

“Where she goes, we go; where she stands, we stand. We are only a small and a young nation, but we are one and all a band of brothers, and wo march forward with a union of hearts and wills to a common destiny.”