The Waikato Times MONDAY, JULY 30, 1945 CONFIDENCE IN BRITISH RACE

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 22674, 30 July 1945, Page 4

The Waikato Times MONDAY, JULY 30, 1945 CONFIDENCE IN BRITISH RACE

Confidence in Britain, in New Zealand and in the Commonwealth was the keynote of the first statement of the new British High Commissioner, Sir Patrick Duff, on his arrival in New Zealand. Referring to recovery from the disaster of war he said: “We have learned many lessons which will do us no harm. We have learned a new confidence in our own capacity and our own resourcefulness. Britain has reaffirmed her belief in those manly, virile virtues, which it was fashionable between the wars for a small but disproportionately vocal intelligentsia to disparage.” How true this assessment is can be judged from the feats of courage and endurance performed by British soldiers, sailors and airmen in many theatres of war. The men who fought and defeated the German submarines, the men of Arnhem and Dieppe, the heroes of Burma and of the air battle of Britain have magnificently given the lie to charges of decadence in Britain. And those astounding feats of engineering skill and military efficiency which accompanied the invasion of Europe were no less a proof of “those manly, virile virtues” and a shattering reply to the disparagements of “that disproportionately vocal intelligentsia.” To recover from the damage of the war Britain and the Empire will find it necessary to carry those “manly virtues” into the realm of the new peace. There were croakers who declared that an “aged and tired” British race would never recover from the shock. But a nation is only as old as its newest generation. The generation that fought in this war, in association with great allies, achieved that which was declared by enemies and even neutrals to be impossible. There was no aged tiredness in response to the call of Winston Churchill to “fight them on the beaches .. . There was no evidence of hopeless decadence in the factories and workshops and fields of Britain, nor among the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy upon the high seas. Even the women in their millions fought and worked with almost primitive ferocity. They were still young in heart and limb and achieved under the hammering of the “blitz” results which would probably have been impossible to any other people on earth. These facts have inspired the confidence which Sir Patrick Duff has brought with him to New Zealand. He has good reason to believe that a people which performed so well in the stress of war will not be defeated by the problems of the peace that will follow the defeat of the last military enemy. Britain finds it necessary, for instance, greatly to increase her exports of manufactured goods. Is there not reason to hope that the genius and energy that evolved the Spitfire and Lancaster, the artificial harbours that made the invasion of France possible and the shipbuilding miracle that swamped the submarine menace will hold their own in the manufacture and sale of the merchandise of peace? The human intelligence and brawn are there awaiting the wise direction and leadership which also have been proved to be inherent in the British character. Certain it is that the robust confidence and encouragement of men like Sir Patrick Duff will be of greater service to the British race in the future than the faithless, carping disparagement of the “disproportionately vocal intelligentsia.”