FRONTIERSMEN’S RECORD

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1015, 4 July 1930, Page 7

FRONTIERSMEN’S RECORD

UNSELFISH BROTHERHOOD FOLLOWS THE FLAG ORGANISATION OF IDEALS The conference of the Legion of Frontiersmen in Palmerston North last week focussed the spotlight of public interest on an organisation world-wide in character and with a tine record of brotherhood and service that has seldom obtruded into the public gaze. Its members, whose proud possession is a most picturesque uniform, are all men who have lost sight of the deeds of "derring-do” on which the Empire was founded and has been maintained. When, on Christmas Eve in 1904, an organisation was proposed of Frontiersmen, it met with support on one condition—that it should not be tainted with any selfish motive. The movement owes its swift and steady growth to its unselfishness as an offer of service to the Empire. The word “frontiersman” in ordinary parlance means pioneer, and it was the inspiration of a pioneer that started the legion. Shortly after the South African War, Trooper Roger Pocock, of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, was invalided out of that service, and he pictured a legion of such men who lived out of the confines of civilisation. Subsequently it was decided in London to form a brotherhood of exservicemen and men accustomed to hying “out. in the wilds.” The Earl of Lonsdale, was the first president, 'ommanil was taken over bv Colonel '• D .- Driscoll, who served with distinction in the iSouth African War. At the outbreak of the Great War, after only two years of organisation, the New Zealand unit was 1.700 strong, its members being picked. experienced men. Auckland had a specialist corps, called the Waitemata Maritime Troop. Most of these were cither master navigators or ex-naval gunners, but they served in the artillery during the war. *Jr ur i ne the war. Colonel Lriscoll . ytned a battalion for service in East -tinea, containing men from all coiv ners of the earth, and of every trade under the sun. The Chief of «taff uas Courtenay Selous, the famous °ig-game hunter. in all fields of military activity the P gi ??i^ has dono its bir '” said Captain r /; D Esterre, of Auckland, who is the new commissioner. “After the war tnr- legion was rather disorganised, and ,t is only now setting on its feet pain, its squadrons and troops exist Thft Island, and it has le than 18.000 members throughout ate world. Wherever the British flag 3'*®’ and m many planes where it vies not, there is a Frontiersman.”