THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Thursday, August 16, 1945. VICTORY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25924, 16 August 1945, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Thursday, August 16, 1945. VICTORY

“ The fight is o’er, the battle done.” The first response of the free peoples of the world, and the freed peoples, to the news that the last enemy has been defeated will doubtless be given in joyous celebration. That is the natural reaction to the lifting of the pressure of worry and work that all have carried during the long war. years. The truer reflection of the spirit in which this great victory will be received may well be found in the churches. : as thanksgiving services are offered. Not all will attend these who may rejoice with abandon, but in all hearts there must be a thankfulness, too deep for expression in hectic gaiety, that there is an end to human sacrifice for the preservation of free men’s rights, that the killing is over and the world can think about peaceful things once more. There .will be no misconception, unless by the very young, that the termination of fighting marks the conclusion of the period of world crisis. In nearly six years of war the vitality of the Great Powers that must preserve the peace has been taxed; many nations are left in ruin and starvation; the economic resources of Great Britain, the keystone of the powerful and essential peace-loving Imperial structure, have been poured out to near exhaustion. The period of replenishment that lies ahead presents problems, both national and international, as urgent to the confirmation of victory as those which have been resolved on the far-flung battlefields. They must be met by all the people with courage, with resolution, and with attack equal to that with which the Allied fighting men have faced and vanquished the aggressors. It is in a mood of re-dedication, not of vainglory, that we should pay tribute to-day to those who made this glorious triumph of man's sovereign law possible, that we should turn our eyes to the future and its heavy tasks.