JAMBOREE ABANDONED

Evening Star, Issue 23369, 12 September 1939, Page 4

JAMBOREE ABANDONED

SCOUTS’ CENTENNIAL DISPLAY KILLED BY WAR SERVICES OFFERED TO GOVERNMENT [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, September 11. Because of the war, the New Zealand Centennial Boy Scout Jamboree will not now take place, announced the Commissioner (Mr J. E. F. Vogel) at the jamboree headquarters, Wellington, to-day. It was to have been the biggest international youth gathering ever held in this country. The commissioner recalled that shortly before the outbreak of hostilities the jamboree headquarters announced that in the event of war it would be necessary to consider cancelling the jamboree. Now tho organisers bad decided not to carry on with the arrangements. The fact that the camp site at Heretaunga was no longer available and uo other suitable sito could ho found definitely precluded tho holding of the jamboree, the commissioner said. Besides this the organisers were now unable to obtain the technical assistance, supplies, facilities and amenities which in normal times were being willingly offered to Boy Scouts. Morever, many of those throughout New Zealand who had .been giving time and energy to tbe ’ prepartory work and who would be taking part in the administration of tho camp would. now bo called on to give their services elsewhere, and as a result the personnel for staffing the jamboree would no longer be available. These were some of the reasons which prompted the jamboree headquarters to decide relucantly that the jamboree could not be held.

A message has been sent to the Acting Prime _ Minister (Mr Fraser) by the Dominion headquarters of the New Zealand Boy Scouts offering the services of the association _to the country in any civil capacity in which they could be used.