The people's voice., 1942-02-27
Sir Richard Acland Says British
Big Business Endangers Victory

our interest that every productive re
source should be pressed into service
| it is in the owners interest to wonder
whether there will not be surplu!
productive capacity at the end Of the
war In case it should be though
that Iexclude myself from these di
vided loyalties, it is in our interes
to see that every mature or nearly
mature tree is felled now, but I ask
honorable members where is the
estate owner who is not compelled by
this system to think about the timber
needs of his particular estate in tC
10 years time? These conflicts of in
terest are too great.
People Determined Not to Go
Back to Old World
1t goes further than that. We are
appealing for more and more spon
taneous self-sacrifice for our country
from the great masses of our peo-
pie. This is the second time within
living memory that we have been
dOhCQ " odCl illCC lOl Jul COuall ,
and we are willing to do it. Is it too
great a shock to honorable mem bers
opposite to hear, quite bluntly,
definitely and certainly, that, after
these sacrifices have been made, this
country is going to be ours and not
someone else's? OF course, in mo-
ments of individual crisis acts Of in
dividual heroism are always forth
coming, but something more is needed
for the war effort. These acts must
be backed up by enthusiastic self
denial hour after hour, day after day
and year after year in all the hum
drum tasks which war involves. This
though considerable, is
and confined today by pic
ture which is present to the minds of
great numbers of people; a picture
of this country divided into "We" and
They" 1--WE" are the great masses,
more or less unwanted, called out to
act as heroes when we're needed, and
then pushed back to where we be-
long, as we were last time. "They,"
on the other hand, are little group,
living rather different kind of life
from what we live, somehow always
succeeding in striking it lucky, and
with a fair probabili that, when the
soldier is back in the unemployment
queue and the Spitfire pilot is selling
vacuum cleaners, they" will be some
how comfortably running the country
from behind the scenes. If you want
he fullest enthusiasm of our people
for prolonged war something has
got to happen which will categorically
and unequivocably prove that that
picture is not going to correspond to
what will happen at the end of this
var.
| would ask honorable members to
lotice one very great difference be-
ween this war and the last. In the
asst war we talked of new world,
)ut each man in his heart was deeply
lnxious to get back to just the same
title world that he knew before In
his war there is a positive and pas
majority of the people
lot to go back to the miserable world |
which they knew In 1889. We want
o move on to new way of living,
where the motive of service will
transcend the motive of Individual
ain. Even the (London) Times
dmits that that is true, though very
ew of its readers understand what
re the conditions which must be
llfilled in order that that may be
ossible.
The conditions are dead simple. We
an work in new way, both for the
ar and for the reconstruction after
ards. We can work In order to
srve, without thinking first and fore
ost of our own interests only If the
reat resources on which we work
Honorable members will be sur
'ised to find how far the acceptance &
these ideas has already gone They {
e not only to be found among work I
g men. They are also to be found
nong that very large, sincere, gen {
'ous, forward-looking sections of the
iddle-class. -. They will also find
ese ideas spreading rapidly among d
10 churches, and finally, and most f
Of all, you will find them /
reading among the men who really t
It the work of industry done, the f
en- who would carry on British in @
lstry without a moments pause even p
every shareholder died intestate
i'd without heirs tomorrow l speak t
the salaried technicians and man. v
ers of industry. There is no d
ubt that they all want a Britain Il
thout property owners and they are "
convinced that they could work it
ore efficiently than they can work tt
under the distorted influence of b
ose who at present own. O.
LAKE, Ore-Adopting r;
, slogan, ((Remember kirkland N