CRITICAL HOUR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24297, 14 May 1940, Page 6

CRITICAL HOUR

UNITY OF EMPIRE NEW LEADER'S MESSAGE ASSURANCE BY MR FRASER (Per United Press Association) ' WELLINGTON, May 13. The Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) has received the following cablegram, dated May 13, from the new British Prime Minister (Mr Churchill): — "On accepting his Majesty's invitation to fill the office of Prime Minister, I send you my warmest greetings. A great responsibility has fallen to me at this critical hour, but its weight is lightened by the sure knowledge that I can rely on your wholehearted support, and that of the other Prime Ministers of the overseas dominions.

"The people of the British Commonwealth of Nations," Mr Churchill said, " are once again united in arms against tyranny and barbarism. Together we shall suffer and strive. Together we shall persevere, and the gates shall not be shut on freedom and justice."

New Zealand's Support Mr Fraser has replied as follows: — " I have to acknowledge and thank you for your message of May 13, and I most cordially reciprocate your greetings. I have noted with great interest your assumption of the office of Prime Minister and the formation of a new Government on'a wide political basis, and I wish at once to assure you of the fullest measure of co-operation from the Government and people of New Zealand, European and Maori alike. The responsibilities that will devolve upon you and your colleagues in this critical stage "of the great struggle upon which we have entered together will be most onerous,, but you may rely entirely upon our sympathetic understanding and our wholehearted support in all the measures necessary to bring this struggle to an early and successful conclusion. . "At this time, particularly when the enemy's forces have at last been fully unleashed, we can confidently rely on "the determination of our people throughout the British Commonwealth, which is never stronger than in a crisis such as this, on the justice of our cause and on our efforts, undertaken as they are by our own free will, to release ourselves and the world for all time from the threat of domination by brutal force directed with unrelenting cruelty."