Impeding Our Cause Will Not Be Tolerated

Northern Advocate, 26 January 1940, Page 3

Impeding Our Cause Will Not Be Tolerated

r Per Press Association. Copyright ] WELLINGTON. This Day

“VO PROFESSED ANTAGONISM TO NAZIDOM WILL EXCUSE " ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY OR WEAKEN THE ECONOMIC ORGANISATION THAT IS VITAL TO A SUSTAINED WAR EFFORT.”

(The Attorney-General (Mr IT. G. R. Mason) said this last night in a broadcast address, in which ho discussed seditious propaganda.

The Government, he added, was tolerant,' and would remain tolerant, of all legitimate comments or criticisms on public affairs, but it would not be tolerant of utterances or counsellings that were designed to distract, divide or disturb the people in their prosecution of the stern task to which they had set themselves.

“I have recently examined certain newspaper and magazine articles, pamphlets and reports of speeches that have been submitted to me by responsible officers, who regard them as subversive or seditious in character,” said Mr Mason. ‘‘l have no hesitation in saying that in my opinion some of the matter so submitted justified the charge.

‘‘The years that have passed since the outbreak of the Great War have, admittedly, been full of occasions to controversy. Views at Variance ‘‘To come down to recent times some were,for conciliating or appeasing Hitler's Germany; others for resisting it. Some thought we should fight for Czechoslovakia; others were for keeping the peace. “Finally, some in New Zealand, as no doubt elsewhere in the Empire, have seen in the history of the present British Government nothing but a record of blunders, while others are convinced that the picture is one of, at least, honest, and mainly competent, handling of a series of difficult and dangerous situations. It all depended on the point of view. “Then, with many of these differences still fresh and still unreconciled, we found ourselves once more at war.

“It was inevitable that there were many among us who should ask: ‘Why should this thing be? How is it that, after so great and costly a victory, which is still fresh in our minds, we should once again be fighting for our lives? ’

Time to Reconcile Thought

“The Government believed,” Mr Mason continued, “that not instantaneously can everyone realise that, whatever view he might have held in the past about British policy, there was now only one thing for loyal men to do—to stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of the Commonwealth. “The Government relied on the good sense and strong instinct of solidarity of our people to consolidate opinion in support of a truly worthy war effort. But the Government is now convinced that ample time for the readjustment of reasonable and loyal minds to new realities has been allowed.

“In every society there are people who cannot, or will not, enter into genuine spiritual communion with their fellows, and there is one thing we require of dissenters —that they do not seerz to hincrer me purpose that they refuse to help. We are entitled to demand, and we do demand, that they abstain from propaganda that is hostile to the national cause.

“To allege that Britain and France are engaged in a capitalistic war, and that there is nothing to choose between them and Germany so far as merits are concerned, is manifestly subversive. N.Z. Would Fall “In plainer English, it is nonsensical, mischievous and disloyal. Let me repeat what both the Prime Minister (Mr Savage) and the Minister of Education (Mr Fraser), both of them lifelong haters of war and militarism, have in recent speeches made very clear that if Britain falls, so do we, and if that happens our Centennial marks the close of freedom and selfgovernment for the people of our race in these islands.

“If Britain’s enemies drag her down we are among the spoils for the victors and we will, become hewers of wood and drawers of water for the contemptuous and merciless conqueror. What a fate for a country that, bred and still breeds Anzacs!

“Nowhere is there a truer spirit of toleration for all shades and forms of honest opinion than here. We ai*e now fighting to retain for ourselves and to retrieve for others who have lost them these priceless possessions. “The Government arjd people of this country will not tblerate that freedom to be perverted to impede the cause of freedom.

“We are threatened by an adversary of proved courage and tenacity, whose resources are in every respect formidable, but formidable as they are they are by no means irresistible.

“Let us therefore match the unity of the enemy with a still closer unity of our own that will be proof against anything that he may bring against us. By so doing we shall deserve the victory and we shall surely win.”