TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, 11th DECEMBER, 1939. PEACE AT ANY PRICE.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4222, 11 December 1939, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, 11th DECEMBER, 1939. PEACE AT ANY PRICE.

IT seems incredible at a time like this, after all that has been said and written, that any ignorance or misunderstanding could exist on the part »f any section of the community concerning the issues for which the war is being fought. Yet, nevertheless, there was recently a meeting in Auckland, and another meeting on the West Coast of the South Island, that claimed that the Government should explore every proposal for peace and liberty. Especially was the Government asked to give a guarantee that there would be no conscription, and that no New Zealand troops would be sent overseas, because, so it was averred, “it is a war of imperialist plunder on both sides,” and that “ imperialism had helped Hitler in every way, hoping that he would make war on the Soviet Union.” The West Coast Trades and Labour Council, at a meeting representative of seventeen affiliated bodies, went even further with a remit to the annual conference of the Federation of Labour, demanding that the Government should explain why New Zealanders were expected to fight in “ an imperialistic war ” between “ capitalist Britain and France on the one side and capitalist Germany on the other.” It was ‘further demanded that an emergency conference of the Federation should be summoned “ to formulate a policy in connection with the war and to resist the enroachments on our liberties and standard of living.”

There was certainly disclosed in these meetings the disruptive influence which the Hon. R. Semple has been seeking to expose as a dangerous under-current in New Zealand’s life at the present time- The talk about an “ imperialistic war ” is merely a subtle catch-phrase, because by no stretch of imagination could the term be applied truthfully to the present conflict. Actually the war is being fought in defence of the very things that both these meetings assert are in danger—“ our liberties and standard of living.” Moreover, if the struggle is prolonged, and the immediate dangers from which at present our isolation protects us close in upon us, nothing is more certain than that some sacrifice of our standards of living would be demanded. Our liberties, too, may have to be further restricted in order that the nation’s resources may be effectively organised for concentrated effort. The demand, too, upon the country’s man power for the armed forces needed for home defence and the reinforcement of troops overseas must inevitably compel resort to compulsory service as the fairest and most effective method of meeting requirements. By the majority of the people of New Zealand resolutions of the kind adopted by these peace-at-any-price meetings will be accorded deserved contempt. They will range themselves solidly behind the Government in its determination to marshal all the resoures of the country against the aggressor nations which have plunged Europe, and maybe the whole world, into war. Insiden tally, the Government might well begin to take more serious notice of the subversive Communist propaganda which is be - ing carried on in New Zealand by elements whose sympathies are alien to our traditions and a menace to our national interests and safety. A new danger has arisen on the horizon of the war. Russia, great Communist Power, and the head centre of a system of subversive propaganda which has extended its ramifications and its active agencies in every country of the world, including this Dominion, has suddenly thrown off the mask. Profiting by the unsettled state of Europe, she has embarked upon a policy of undisguised aggression. The extent and direction of this cannot be foreseen, but it has a world objective, and the methods, as exemplified in the tragic experience of Finland, are grimly, significant. The Technique of Communist expansion, as laid down by the Comintern in Moscow, is to make dissension and strife by fomenting industrial disputes and strikes and using nations at war as breeding grounds for the poisonous doctrines of this destructive philosophy of proletarian dictatorship. We cannot afford to underestimate the danger of this menace. We must, if we value our safety and i our political freedom, exercise the greatest vigilance and control over those elements in our midst that are bent oh exploiting our national emergency for the benefit of an alien cause.