A NEW FORGE BUILDING UP

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 7, 21 September 1942, Page 4

A NEW FORGE BUILDING UP

HAVE you ever stopped to think of the tremendous postwar power of the N.Z.R.S.A. or in fact the combined strength of the war veterans of any country. Undoubtedly such an organisation must play a big part in the destiny of the workl of the future and from it will possibly be born the finest pattern of democracy the world has known. Partyism must become subsidiary to the common bond of suffering endured by a,ll its members,, while the comradeship born of battle service .can be calculated to defy the ebb and, flow of civilian fortunes and stand four-square: to the winds chance. New Zealand's position alone can typify the vast accumulated strength of such a movement which if organised and cultivated could well become the complete and unified governing force of the Dominion. With 160,000 men in the regular fighting forces and still more to come, the voting power of this section alone including dependents and sympathisers could overwhelm all other schools of political thought. Then we have , the veterans of the 1914-18 war, still calculated to number 60,000, and though many of them are serving again there must be still a substantial percentage who are not. The link with the remainder is in any case solidified through the Home Guard where another 50,000 men who did not participate in the last war can a,t least be described as having strong army leanings. These men together with their families must have a voting power equal to 80 per cent, cf the whole polling strength of New Zealand. As we have observed, it merely requires the banding of the whole mass into one instrument, dedicated to the welfare of the country to be able to sweep triumphantly to victory through any election campaign of the future. But the movement does not necessarily end there. War veterans throughout the world,, will on the return of peace number more than ever before. Possibly they will far outnumber the civilian population and if as in the past the R.S.A. overseas —of Britain, America, France, Russia, Norway, Holland and all the Allied countries now involved were to extend the hand of friendship, one to the other —then indeed might be born at long last that international brotherhood, created in suffering and held together by sacrifice and the pitiful examples of wars hideousness —still within their ranks. In time, as followed the years of last war,, the veterans of Hitler's armies seeing the utter futility of war and the overwhelming strength of the movement for good, might even become members. Thus it can be seen that from war may yet spring a new and virile brotherhood, whose activities will recognise no national boundaries and whose asperations will cover all men irrespective of class, race or creed.