BRITISH AMERICAN CO-OPERATION

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 17, 15 October 1942, Page 4

BRITISH AMERICAN CO-OPERATION

Movement’s Annual Meeting

ADDRESS BY U.S. RED CROSS DIRECTOR

“We humans are always- funny and difficult individuals,” said the Field Director of the American Red Cross in New Zealand, Mr. W. ,1. Enders, when addressing the second annual general meeting of the British American Co-operation Movement in Wellington hist night. “We hate to ask or expect anything of the oilier fellow till someone hits us. Then we look around for heli).”

Mr. Benders was expressing his belief in movements of tlie co-operative type between nations. He did not think it an intangible idea, he said. Among those present was a representative of Canada. The- United States and Canada had let ,dpwn a lot of barriers such as exist between eliminations, because they are just friends. Ho thought that there should be a British American movement in the same way.

“Of course they say we Yanks are different. I use the term ‘Yank’ advisedly. I know we’re not the people we think we are. When we came here we found we didn’t talk the King’s English. We felt a little remorse at that after the time we spent at college. We found we had no table manners—they called us the ‘knifeless wonders,’ so we started to ‘eat’ native,’ and liked it.

“With all these superficial differences we are still one. Our historical backgrounds are the same, except that you in’ this island have kept as nearly English as possible, while our nation has become a melting pot of many nations. Our language is the same — believe it or not—and if there is one thing I pray and hope we shall see come to fruition it is the preservation of the democratic ideology which is the gift of the English-speaking peoples to the world. Teaching the Children. “If this movement’can ever do one thing,” said Mr. Enders, “it would be to go down to our schools and give the children a better appreciation of the British Empire, and to give your children a better appreciation of ‘we Yanks.’ ” Discussing the development of the world after the war, and the great responsibility which would fail upon Great Britain and the United States in its modelling, Mr. Enders said that he was pleased that emphasis bad already been laid at the meeting on the part the spiritual side must play. “How many have stopped to think, amid all the rush for munition output and war preparation, that there is an unemployed carpenter, the Carpenter of Nazareth, who has something to say to help us in the shaping of the w-orld after the war?” asked Mr. Enders. Mr. Enders expressed his thanks for the great assistance the members of the movement had given him in his work, mentioning specially the work done in visiting the sick in hospital. They had, when they arrived in New Zealand, detailed plans worked out for operation, but they had remained in the files untouched. Things just did not work out that way, and he had to do most unexpected things. In that he had received every possible co-op-eration. The men had been received into the people’s homes. “When every single man that has touched this shore gets home,” declared Mr. Enders, “he is going to have nothing but good to say of New Zealand. You opened your front doors, and left the key in the door.”