R.S.A. NEWS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3533, 22 July 1920, Page 6

R.S.A. NEWS

PR. BOXER'S MESSAGE. TO MEMBERS OF THE R.S.A. In thanking the member* an his reelection to the office of President, of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association, Dr. E. Boxer said he felt eincerelv the honour that had been conferred apon him. Ho also thanked the CbnfeiciJe for the assistance, it had given him during the past weeks' deliberations, and the members of the past Executive. It would be invidious to mention names, but there were men on the Executive who had been an incaluable stand-by in all difficulties. He' knew that in the future the new Executive would give him all the help he had the right to ask. He would like to take this opportunity to send out a message to all the members of the Association. The Association needed a little shaking up, and there should go forth a clarion cry as to where their real duty lay in future usefulness. The past had begun in small things and was buried with the small things, but there was an increasing sphere of usefulness ahead. The R.S.A. had an assured position. He believed it was now a power for good in the land, and it would become more so as the years went on. He did not think it would die a natural death as some predicted, but would rise, Phoen-ix-like, out- of the ashes of old dissensions to a notable career, and would carrv oh the good work begun. They had "won this position for themselves bv the strength of their minds and

by 'the *ight of *arms. The future lay in their hands, and he. personally, jyould not consider his responsibility lightly. : ••*•■•"•"■ " . ; " •■:■* He regarded the office he held as a very sacred trust— something that should occupy one's very best endeavours and engage one 's best hopes. He -would impress upon all "members_of the Association that the future was 'in the individual member's hands, and his message to them would be that they must have for their ideal, "The greatest good for the greatest number." Individual members may desire a strong course in certain directions, buf they must realise that.it was 'necessary to look upon the matter before them in the light of how the country —the Dominion as a whole —would vie-w their ideas gand intentions. He would, firstly, ask the .sixty thousand members of the Association to think Imperially—study history, and realise the greatness of the Empire. In the past the cry had been "For God and Merry England," but he would now say "For. God and the World.;" It was for that ideal they must ultimately strive. Out of the travail of the past years of the war, - the world had hoped there would come a child to be known as Peace—a League of Nations that would insist on peace—that there should no longer exist the right of man to kill man. The League of Nations had been born, but it still remained for the British nation, and not the League, to defend the integrity of the lesser and weaker nations of the world. There was one nation that would not accept this mandate from the world, but which retired within the shell of its own domains and luxuriated in the midst of its dollars. Who, then, would take up /tho mandate? Who but the power already overburdened and weary with the stress of duties determined in tho past—which had 'already poured out its blood and treasure in defence of weaker nations —we, 'ourselves, would have to take up this mandate again on behalf of tho smaller nationalities, even as in the present case of Armenia. "We will have to be ready to go through, in the future, as parents, what our parents

went through." said Dr. Boxer, "when they yielded us into the King's keeping and gave us to the Empire." This would be the greatest sacrifice they could be called upon to make; but he took it that in the future there would be no .sacrifice they would refuse for the Empire. Their parents had not faltered—even •to the death. Seventeen thousand comrades "were missing to-day. ana" so, in the future. ■would we have to be prepared to yield those tiny ones with 'their heads oi

golden eur]s to the destroyer in the de- , • fence of the Empire and the good'of humanity. War might not come—pray to God it would not—but the only •way to prevent ft was for each mem"ber of the Empire to think Imperially and so prepare that it would" be impossible for another to attach us. 'Had it occurred to them, asked Dr. Boxer, that the term "military force" was never used in New Zealand, but "defence force"? We were alone on the borders of the world and comparatively defenceless, therefore, our . object "was not "offence" but \"defence." It was defence for which we had striven, and for which the Em-

pire stood. He would, secondly, stress the point that they should think nationally, as far us New Zealand was conecrned. The Eeturned Soldiers were about 10 per cent of the total population. They

I hud. therefore, to remember that there 1 wore 90 per eer.t. of the population besides had to share the burden of the 10 nor' cent. Thirdly, he asked then! to think enthusiastically of their Association: They had created by their own power of their own brain something of which they should be intensely proud. He believed that if there was more enthusiasm ifoT ithe Association, more would be done. The idea should be not ihoAv much one could get out of the Association for one's self. but what good it could do for the incapacitated and stricken soldier and bis dependents. The past had more than justified itself, and it was for tliem to justify the future. "Lift up your eyes to the hills for future greatness/' concluded Dr. Boxer, "the high levels which are the "salvation of the generations yet unborn; make it your religion to live and strive for others, for the strickeu and their dependants, and so will you find yourselves and learn the true joy of life."