LOYALTY TO EMPIRE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21532, 20 December 1939, Page 4

LOYALTY TO EMPIRE

PRACTICAL DEMONSTRATION DESIRED Bv fplpgraph Presp Association CHRISTCHURCH. December 13. A request that the Government should make a practical demonstration of loyalty to the Empire by forgetting differences of political opinion and of class was made by the retiring chairman of the Christchurch Stock Exchange iMr H. Kitson) In his address to members at the anhual meeting this morning. Mr Kitson quoted from Sir John Simon's British Budget speech: “If the price of victory is high, it is worth paying.’ 1 “There are few in New Zealand who would quarrel with that statement,” said Mr Kitson, “provided the victory we are asked to pay for is a victory over our enemies, not a victory of one class over another within our ranks. “We should as a people have to-day but one common object—the defeat of Nazism. Have we? Are all our efforts being directed to one goal, or are side Issues taking up too touch of our attention? There are two sides to every question and it is folly to disregard a minority entirely. A common foe should bind a people together no matter whether the foe is at our gates or not. As it happens we have not had much to bring home to us the fact that we are at war, and at war with a mighty foe.” “Therefore,” he added, “I am not going to criticise the Government or produce figures that clearly indicate the trend of our finances. Rather I am going to ask that the Government make a practical demonstration of their loyalty to the Empire, not only by forgetting past and petty quarrels, but by ceasing to set up one class agaihst another by Insidious propaganda. This would enable our contribution to the price of victory to be not merely our sons’ blood and our treasure, but our combined efforts. “No one section of the community has a monopoly of brains. Ideals may be wonderful things but they are apt to produce fanatical thinking and unconsciousness. Sleep-walking is the sport of the unconscious. Let us awake and really combine our efforts; we owe it to the Empire. If we do not awake soon, we will be too tired and unhappy to care.’’ _ „