THE R.S.A.

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 197, 24 December 1941, Page 5

THE R.S.A.

CHANGE OF TITLE

INFLUX OF NEW MEMBERS

(Contributed) The first local gathering of the j R.S.A. since the re-christening in Wellington last week was held in Dannevirke on Saturday evening. We wonder whether there was due appreciation of the significance of the change of name, not in regard to the initials, but in respect to the words. The New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association meant one thing. The New Zealand Returned Services' Association means another. The former was restrictive, the latter is all-embracing—which is as it should be. The result of the change should be an eventual influx of new members. It will mean, or should do so, a very great expansion in the scope of the association as affecting its membership and the people of the 1 Dominion as a whole. We wonder if its leaders, apart from the rank and file, visualise the place that the Returned Services Association can take in New Zealand, provided its direction is sound and, what is equally important for the general welfare, reasonable. Given the membership which the association deserves —and the accretions in the course of time should represent the many thousands of men in all the New Zealand services—it could become the most powerful factor in the Dominion in shaping the future policy of the country.

And who will have the greater right—those who fought to protect it or those who stayed at home' Moreover, the' association under its new name will have a wider influence in the future than it has had up to the present —and that has been by no means small —on account of the fact that more civilians will be directly interested in its activities. This is due to the fact that many who were not, for a variety of reasons, combatants in the last war, to-day Jhave sons in the various services, and naturally these parents will be interested in keeping in touch with the association if for no other reason than a purely family connection. It must therefore be appreciated by the members of the parent body that it has a great responsibility for the time being; it must also be recognised that the time will come when- there will be insistent push from the back on the part of the men fresh from this war to take the place of some of the veterans of the last. There will be a process of absorption. First by the old of the new, and later with the procedure reversed. This phase cannot be disregarded; instead it should be fostered, because the future of the association will largely be in the new members it hopes to> enrol. They will have some impressions, some aspirations. They may desire to promote or arrest a trend in the life of the people, or they may wish I not all. think alike, but as long as | they appreciate the right of those who are not eligible for membership in their own organisation, then there Avill be no cause for complaint. With a fresh enrolment, of very many thousands of the virile manhood of the nation, the Returned Services' Association in the future must hold a very responsible position in Dominion affairs. Its declared policy is to be nonparty political. Adhering firmly to the former, and influencing Dominion politics as it should be able to influence them, even more than it has done in the past, the association should be an organisation offering effective protection to the interests oif men and women of the services; it should be able to take the initiative when the occasion demands it; and another most valuable contribution which it should endeavour to make will be the promotion amongst the whole community of that comradeship which is the offspring />f danger shared together. The present war has given the N.Z. R.S.A. a new lease of life; it will soon be invigorated and it can " proceed confidently in the knowledge that heed will be pakl to its representations if for no other reason than that it will be fully representative of the bulk of the male population of New Zealand. May it proceed wisely, and unselfishly, because it will have a great responsibility.