NATIONAL SERVICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24334, 26 June 1940, Page 6

NATIONAL SERVICE

There will probably be general agreement that Mr Semple is the member of the Government most fully qualified to perform the functions that will come within the scope of the duties of the Minister of National Service. It may indeed be doubted whether there is any other member of the Government to whom these duties could have advantageously been entrusted. Mr Semple possesses the energy, the imagination, and the capacity for producing results that are somewhat conspicuously lacking in most of his colleagues, and if, as may be expected, he applies himself vigorously and unsparingly to the task of organising and mobilising the manhood and womanhood of the Dominion in the supreme war effort that is imperative he will, despite certain unfortunate episodes of the past, capture the confidence of the community. The powers that are entrusted to him under the Emergency Regulations Act are more farreaching than have ever before been exercised by any Minister in New Zealand. They are necessary, however, in order that the human resources of the country may be effectively utilised in the national interest, and there can be no person, genuinely concerned in the preservation of the privileges which we enjoy, who can reasonably object to such temporary curtailment of the liberty of the people of the Dominion as they entail. Sacrifice is demanded from everyone in the present crisis. All cannot make the same sacrifice, but all can, and must —even though it may be under compulsion—make sacrifices that, spread as equitably as possible, will contribute towards the common end of the employment of all the resources of the country in the determination to overthrow the forces of barbarism that have been efficiently and ruthlessly organised against us. The resources of the British Empire are enormous. They vastly exceed those that can be marshalled by the Nazis, even though Germany now controls the greater part of Europe. They are valuable, however, only to the extent to which they can be pooled and brought effectively and promptly into use at the points at which they may most decisively be applied to the object of crushing the enemy. Fortunately there is gratifying evidence that the Empire is becoming fully awakened to the sense of the grave peril to which it is exposed. New Zealand cannot afford and can-

not dare to abstain from throwing the whole weight of her resources, physical, financial and industrial, into the Imperial pool. Her existence as a free country is threatened just as much and just as surely as the existence of Great Britain is. There can be no excuse for anything short of a loyal, and united recognition of the need of a self-discipline that will submit to any sacrifices, whatever they may be, which the preservation of our homes and our liberties may require’. It rests primarily with Mr Semple to ensure that there shall be no shrinking on the part of the people of the Dominion from the call that will be made upon them.