Scout Movement Grows By Leaps And Bounds

Chronicle (Levin), 12 January 1949, Page 4

Scout Movement Grows By Leaps And Bounds

AUCKLAND, Jan. 11. K " ' Sfiouting, which had been labelled by both the Hitlpr and Stalin regimes as Public Enemy Nq, 2, had increased m strength by nearly .50 per cent. since the war, said the Chief Seout of the Britisii Commonwealth and Empire, Lord Rowallan, .who arrived from Sydney by air. He attended tHe PanPaciflc Jamboree in Victoria and will spend llva weeks in the Dominion meeting. as many members of the movement as possible. Now. totalling 440,000, the number of Seouts and Cubs iii the United Kingdomwas the highest in the history of Scout-

ing, said Lord Rowallan. Throughout the wqrld there were about 4,500,000 in registered associations but there were ■ many more, who, by necessity, were not registered in countries sueh as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary where the movement had been suppressed. Seouting had been the first of the free institutions to be suppressed in all totalitarian ■ countries. It had been placed by Hitler as Public Enemy No. 2 after Communism and by the Soviet as .Public Enemy No. 2 after Fascism, a tribute to the great movement wliich preserved the principles of freedom and democracy. 'ftThe growth of Seouting in all countries, while they had been occupied bv the enemy during war, was quite plienomenal because in those countries x it became an adventure with a rislc attached to it. That provided a ehalLenge to every bo he contiuued. The countries included Beigium, Holland, Luxembourg and Norway. As a

eonsequenee of the service rendered by Rcouts during the vwar, the movement had a place in the nationak life of sueh plaees which has almost incredible. Its strength had doubled in France during the conflict. In all occupied countries, both in- Europe and Asia, Seouts were among the foremost in the resistance movements,' Lord Rowallan said. The venue of the next World Jamboree to be held in 1951, would be decided at the Rover moot or eonference to take place in Norway in'August next. He was delighted to learn that New Zealand would be represented there