N.Z. Appreciation To President, People For Aiding Britain

Northern Advocate, 17 March 1941, Page 3

N.Z. Appreciation To President, People For Aiding Britain

(Per Press Association. Copj/nnnr.l WELLINGTON, This Day. The deep appreciation of the Government and citizens of Wellington for the assistance rendered Great Britain and the Allies by the United States in passing and carrying into effect the Lend or Lease Act was voiced by the Frime Minister (Mr Fraser) and other speakers at a large-attended meeting in the Town Hall yesterday afternoon. The meeting was convened by the New Zealand section of the BritishAmerican Co-operation Movement. Lend or Lease Act. On the motion of the Bishop of Wellington (the Rt. Rev. H. St. Barbe Holland) the following motion was adopted unanimously: “That the Prime Minister be requested to forward the following cablegram to the President of the United States: ‘This mass meeting of citizens expresses its deep and sincere gratitude to Your Excellency and to the public cf America for the assistance to Britain and, allied democratic countries culminating in the Lend or Lease Act’.” Speakers at the meeting included the chief secretary of the Salvation Army in New Zealand (Lieut.-Col. W. A. Ebbs). Representatives of various sections of the community were present, including the High, Commissioner for the United Kingdom in New Zealand (Sir Harry Batterbee), the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers), the American Consul (Mr R. English), and the High Commissioner for Canada (Dr. W. A. Riddell).. Common Native. Mr Fraser said Britain and America were united in their determination to stamp out the tyrannies of Nazism and Fascism, and in Whatever men could do to further this, none would do more than those who had gone overseas from New Zealand. “It is to express our appreciation and gratitude to the American people and their President that we are meet- j ing here this afternoon,” he added. “That same spirit, which has fired the British people since they were faced with the most cruel tyranny that ever blackened mankind is the spirit manating from the great democracy of the United States. “Shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, both democracies will go forward to the final triumph of freedom, liberty and democracy.” 1 Likened To Lincoln. I Mr. Fraser said that America’s J greatest President, and one of the greatest statesmen of all time, had uttered words that had come down in history with undimmed brightness, and would resound through the corridors of time as long as people loved freedom. Lincoln's words were: “We are here that the dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, snail have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” Seventy-seven years afterwards, said Mr. Fraser, another great President of the United States had put into effect the sentiments of Lincoln by introducing a measure that would mean so much not only to the British Commonwealth of Nations, but to the entire j world and humanity in general. i Fighting Force For Democracy. | On March 12 last Mr. Roosevelt had j sent a message to the Speaker of Congress from the White House which read: “This nation has found it imperative to the security of the United States that we encourage the democra- ; cies in their heroic resistance to aggression by not only maintaining but also increasing the flow of material assistance from this country. There- | fore Congress enacted and I signed the Lend or Lease Bill. Through this legislation our country is determined to do its full part in creating an adequate arsenal of democracy.” “The effect of those words,” said Mr. Fraser, “would be to create from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle a living and vital fighting force for democracy and human freedom.”