The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1941 A Call For Sacrifice

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21971, 24 May 1941, Page 8

The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1941 A Call For Sacrifice

MORE than two years ago Mr Harold Ickes, the United States Secretary for Interior, said in a speech at Los Angeles: “The struggle that is going on all over the world to-day between dictatorship and repression of one hand and Democracy and tolerance on the other is a battle in which there can be no non-combatants.” Those words, true when they were uttered first, are more forcefully true now than they were then. The British Empire is engaged in a struggle against tyrants who have subjugated their own people and who are determined to subjugate the rest of mankind. There is no place for non-combatants among the threatened peoples, so it is the duty of all to participate in the struggle to an extent which is being fixed in part by the State and in part by the individual conscience. Yesterday in Auckland'‘New Zealanders had the privilege of hearing the first accounts given by Mr R. G. Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia, of his i-ecent visit to the Middle East, Great Britain and the United States. Mr Menzies created an excellent impression in London; he was accepted there as one of the Empire’s great war leaders and it is for this reason that special heed should be paid to his reports and exhortations. He has cloaked in words appropriate to the times a message similar to that delivered by Mr Harold Ickes before the sword of war fell across the world.

Mr Menzies has sat as a member of the British War Cabinet and in any consideration of his words this fact must be kept in mind. “We are in the greatest peril that has ever confronted our people in their history,” he said. “These are not mere words. We are dealing with a foe who has immense resources and who has at his disposal the skill of thousands of people in the countries he has conquered. We face a people driven on by a diabolical spirit that has infested it for half a century. We have to match sacrifices with more sacrifices, machines with more machines. If necessary we must put ourselves in utter servitude for the next few years so that we may live in future not in servitude but freedom.” That is not a cheering declaration, but Mr Menzies knows from the best possible sources how great the Empire’s peril is. For the present the enemy enjoys advantages of which he will be deprived later, but in the meantime he has been able to establish himself in so many countries that the process of reconquest is going to be complicated and exhausting. First hand reports such as this given by Mr Menzies should be a stimulant and inspiration to the people of this country who even yet are not fully aware of the dimensions and full implications of the conflict. Victory is not something merely desirable; it is as necessary to our national life as air and food are to physical life. If Germany won the war there would be no question about what the Empire would lose. Everything would be lost, so it is - to maintain British ideals of fair-dealing, the British way of life and the material assets of British people that the war is being fought. The people in the United Kingdom do not doubt that any sacrifice is worth making to gain a triumph over Hitler and the same mood must prevail in this country. Mr Menzies addressed the people of Australia and New Zealand when he said: “What matter if we come out of the war broke, or in the last stages of poverty, provided it is an honourable poverty and we share it together?” Extreme demands have not yet been levied upon the people of this country, but when they are there should be no Complaint. No matter what happens life in New Zealand will always be more comfortable than it has been for our kinsmen in the United Kingdom since last August. The sacrificial spirit of Britain will ultimately have to spread throughout the Empire before Nazi German is overthrown. That is the essence of Mr Menzie’s message.