The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1945 MR CHURCHILL'S REVIEW

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25202, 15 May 1945, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1945 MR CHURCHILL'S REVIEW

Tpis has been a proud moment foi Mr Churchill, the pilot cf the Bi'itist Empire. No Prime Minister has addressed the nation under more peculiar circumstances: he was cele brating victory in the middle of £ war. The realisation that the Empire has still, in union with the Unitec States, to complete the defeat o; Japan, a nation of 100,000,000 fana tics, runs through Mr Churchill's oration. There was another theme ir which a note of anxiety could be de tected, the necessity of winning the peace for freedom and not for new totalitarian or police governments Mr Churchill's admonitions on the stern struggle ahead with Japan have been made by him before, largely to prove to some doubting elements in the United States that our people are as determined as their Allies to vanquish the JapI anese. The British record in Burma and the Pacific speaks for itself. With the customary unselfishness of those in Britain the Prime Minister asserts that the- Mother Country must not leave unfinished any task which concerns the safety of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This is the more generously said because Canada proposes to rely on volunteers for its effort in the Pacific and Australia still confines the scope of its conscription laws to a limited territory north of Australia. The contribution of Britain to the military defeat of Japan will be restricted only by considerations of distance and transport. Mr Churchill, contrary to expectation, was silent on the form of government which would lead the United Kingdom in the Pacific war. Everyone will rejoice that with so bitter a struggle ahead the Prime Minister does not propose, in his own words, to his reign, whether with a Coalition or Conservative Government. The Empire will wish to achieve the unconditional surrender of Japan under its tried and national leader. In his survey of his five years of Mr Churchill felt bound to refer to the disservice inflicted on the Allied cause by the obtuse and dangerous neutrality of Mr de Yalera and his Cabinet. The Prime Minister was no doubt the more disappointed over the denial of the Irish ports to the Royal Navy because he was one of those chiefly responsible for the creation of the Irish Free State. He had been a party to the grant of self-government to the Union of South Africa and has seen the Empire richly rewarded by the services of Botha and Smuts. He had hopes for the same from Mr Cosgrave and lis successors and had provided for the retention by Britain of the naval bases of Southern Ireland It is no iault of Mr Churchill that his hopes were not fulfilled. He protested igainst Mr Chamberlain's surrender :o Mr de Valera of the ports, an ippeasement which left the Irish eader completely unmoved by any considerations of gratitude or goodwill toward Britain. In a war for the •ights of small nations the British jovernment decided to accept Mr de denial of any facilities to he Royal Navy, although that lenial came near to ruining Eire as veil as Britain and us all. Those who rith Mr Churchill have followed nth pride the achievements in this ?ar of thousands of loyal Irishmen rill hope that eventually Mr de r alera will be succeeded by a stateslan free from the Spanish-Ameri-an's narrow fanaticism and gloomy nd sterile hatred of Britain.

Mr Churchill did not speak at length of the future but he is plainly troubled by totalitarian tendencies in certain of the liberated areas. There is no greater friend of democracy in the world. In the hour of victory in Europe he is no doubt shocked by Russia's totalitarian methods in Poland and by the stronghanded ways of Marshal Tito in the Istrian peninsula. Plainly the Prime Minister had these matters in mind when he spoke with concern of totalitarian or police governments taking the place of German invaders. Some of his critics have reproached him for supporting, as they assert, the claims of the House of Savoy, of King Peter of Yugoslavia and of King George of Greece. But the record shows far otherwise. Mr Churchill has consistently supported a Government of all parties in Italy. He helped Tito from the commencement of his struggle and refused to countenance the pretensions of King Peter. He persuaded King George of Greece to make way for a Regency while the Greeks recovered from the crimes and excesses of the E.A.M. This is not the policy of a reactionary. Mr Churchill has played his part too long in the history of Europe to sacrifice this ancient continent to the dictatorships of either the Right or the Left.

RESPONSIBILITIES SHIRKED Australia has been told by its Minister of Labour that the compulsory direction of men and women to industry will end with the defeat of the Japanese. That is well. It ill becomes free men to be denied choice of vocation except under the stress of national emergency. It does become them, however, that they should be ready to defend their right of choice of employment and everything else they deem worthy in their heritage. The Minister, Mr Holloway, would have it otherwise. He will oppose compulsory military training even for post-war home defence. Whether Mr Holloway realises it or not, he has proclaimed that the White Australia policy is as flimsy as the paper upon which it is written. He has advised the Japanese that, after their defeat, they can, so far as Australia is concerned, rearm and make another attempt to dominate the Pacific. Australia will not take part in stopping them, for the Commonwealth will not have a national force to give substance to its policies. Japan might well look upon the present conflict as merely a phase in a hundred years' war, if, at the close of the current campaigns, the British Commonwealth, the United States, China and the Netherlands should disarm. Lacking the means to ensure national security,

thp product of compulsory national and not voluntary sectional training, Australia's talk at San Francisco of the rights and responsibilities of the so-called middle Powers becomes so much hot air to be chilled by the icy realism of men like M. Molotov. Instead of uttering the cheap vote-catching cry of "no conscription," Mr Hollo way would have done better had he said Australia's post-war defence policy would be framed according to her duties and needs. That would have been the act of a statesman. Mr Holloway evidently prefers to remain a politician. FARMS AND FORCES Those who have contended that the Government should put. recruiting for the armed forces on a definite basis in relation to food production, now that the European war has ceased, should welcome support from the Auckland Council of Primary Production. This body showed yesterday that it was really concerned about the continued drain on farm labour for the forces without any apparent regard on the Government's part for the changed war situation. It was informed of three cases in which dairy herds had been sold because men had been called into the Army. Again, a couple whose son was in Italy declared that they could not carry on alone for another season. There may not be a large proportion of such cases, but that any at all should occur is anomalous in the midst of a three years' drive for increased production of foodstuffs, and at a time when further cuts in Britain's rations are stated to be inevitable. Unquestionably, many farms in New Zealand are being carried on by men and women in later middle age because able-bodied sons or employees are in the forces. Some such people took over sole responsibility early in the war and are still carrying it, growing older all the time. Some of them, according to statements made from time to time, have had to reduce their dairy herds through sheer physical inability to look after the full number of animals. A time must come when an increasing proportion will have to give up the struggle. Admittedly, some relief has come from the return of men after long overseas service. However, the time is overdue for a clear definition of New Zealand's war commitments, so that all may know where they stand and farmers may be able to draw up their programmes with some certainty of being able to carry them out. It would be absurd to suggest that military security could be affected at this stage of the world struggle by a public statement of the number of men New Zealand intends to maintain in her forces at home and overseas.