The Prime Minister appealed to them without success, however, in terms which should have proved convincing.
''A very serious crisis,'' Mr Massey wrote, ''has come to the Empire and therefore to the dominion. One of the immediate consequences is that Westport coal is urgently required for Imperial purposes. I would therefore ask you, as loyal patriotic citizens, to reconsider this matter and give up the usual holiday in order to cope with the emergency that has arisen.''
This is putting the case very plainly indeed, and it is regrettable that any such appeal should have been necessary.
That it should have failed to elicit the desired response is a circumstance in remarkable contrast to the spirit of patriotism manifested by the workers as a body throughout New Zealand since the war began.
One of the effects of the entry of the Empire upon its present struggle has been to demonstrate the reality and strength of the bond that unites all classes of the community as British subjects.
The response throughout New Zealand to the call of the Mother land and of the Empire has been worthy of this country.
The right spirit has been widely manifested in the volunteering of thousands of young men for active service, and in the cheerful giving of work and contributions, and this little episode at Westport strikes apparently the only jarring note in the whole business.
It is to be hoped that some undesirable influence which may have dictated the decision of the miners may yet be brushed aside.
As loyal subjects the miners should be thoroughly capable of feeling that an exceptional chance is being offered them of rendering the Empire an important service at a time of national stress.
Their contention that the emergency could be overcome by increasing the output of coal does not seem to meet the case at all.
If it were practicable to increase the output this course would assuredly have been taken ere this, and there would have been no need for the Prime Minister to appeal to the patriotism of the miners and to ask them to do in the Empire's interests a little extra work for which, of course, they would be adequately paid.
• The appeal which the Country Organisation Committee of the Otago Patriotic and General Welfare Association is issuing to settlers in the country districts of Otago is addressed in large part to men who have already given freely of their substance in support of the patriotic movement in their respective localities.
There must, however, be scores of settlers who have, through the lack of purely local organisations, not yet become directly associated with any of the agencies for the provision of funds that may be utilised in the promotion of the interests of the Empire at this critical period in its history.
To those settlers the appeal of the Country Organisation Committee will open a channel through which they may manifest their practical sympathy with the steps that are now being taken in New Zealand, as elsewhere, to strengthen the hand of the Mother Country in her hour of need and to ensure that the anxiety and difficulty consequent on the occurrence of war on a scale of unprecedented greatness may be mitigated, as far as possible, for those upon whom the shock of the clash of arms inevitably presses most severely. - ODT, 25.8.1914.0
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
