“EMBARRASSING SITUATION”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25514, 19 April 1944, Page 4

“EMBARRASSING SITUATION”

A spokesman at the New Zealand Legation in Washington, who is reported to have admitted that a statement by Mr Nash on the utilisation of man-power in the Dominion had created “an embarrassing situation,” is speaking for more residents in New Zealand than is probably realised by him. The embarrassment of the legation in the United States must be shared in a sense by the whole of the Dominion. It is not pleasing to find that members of the New Zealand Government at home and abroad —but frequently, nowadays, they are abroad —seem to be unable to present statements of policy accurately, unequivocally, and consistently to friendly nations, and in words which are incapable of misconstruction. Necessarily the Prime Minister, the Acting Prime Minister, and the peripatetic Minister of Finance are all fully aware of the steps that are being taken in New Zealand to withdraw garrison troops from the Pacific Islands in which they are no longer required, and to make them, with troops now stationed in the Dominion who are not eligible for overseas service, available for essential industry, particularly in the field of primary production. There is nothing sinister or significant in these changes, except for their significance as indicating the changed position of New Zealand in relation to the threat of invasion and the recognition by the Allies of the important part which the Dominion must play as a producer in the critical stages of the war that are ahead. If the facts are presented in proper form to the United States, with a reminder of the disproportionate sacrifice in casualties New Zealand has suffered, compared with those of other United Nations, not the least well-disposed unit of the American press could find much out of which to create “an embarrassing situation.” The trouble seems to have lain with the Government, or some of its members. Had the facts of the complete concurrence of the Governments of Great Britain and the United States in the New Zealand man-power adjustments, and of the urgency of the Allied need for that assistance behind the front which this Dominion can provide, been made clear to ‘the American people the present discussion could scarcely have arisen. This is apart from the consideration that the Americans, as a generous and sentimental people, could quickly realise, if the position was put to them, the physical impossibility of this small community continuing to contribute at its previous rate to the Allied fighting services. Failure by the Government to put the case plainly is particularly a matter of concern when it is, from the most excellent of political motives, assisted by the need it finds to provide solatia for rejected legislators, creating an ever-mounting number of diplomatic posts. The first elements of diplomacy surely require that Ambassadors to foreign nations should represent, not misrepresent, their country.