SERVICE TO STATE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 February 1939, Page 4

SERVICE TO STATE

RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUTH APPEAL BY MR JORDAN. CITIZENS URGED TO ASSIST TERRITORIAL movement. An appeal to citizens and employers especially to do all they could to assist Territorial training was made by Mr T. Jordan, president of the Masterton branch of the New Zealand Defence League, when speaking last night at the screening of a film depicting training of troops by demonstration. Mr Jordan, stating that he wanted to say one or two things concerning Territorial training, said he understood that the quota last year of men to go into camp for training from this beautiful district from Pahiatua to the sea, was 42. Of that number 17 only went into training. That, to his mind, was deplorable. There was something radically wrong with the system of education in this country when they could get only 17 men to go into training for a week. Mr Jordan said he thought we could learn something from those countries that we were inclined to revile. Men who had been Home had told him of the intensity of the desire to serve the country that was manifest in the young in some of these Continental countries. He believed that there was a real spiritual value in the wellingness of the young men to serve their country, and if our system of Government was to survive and flourish and if liberty which was its life-blood was to remain pure and strong, then this desire to serve one’s country, in either a social, public or industrial way, would have to be regarded not as a mere eccentricity but as a normal habit of mind. Mr Jordan appealed to all to encourage youth in this country to do their duty. The State had a right to expect a return for what it had spent on them, and to get some return for its investment. Mr Jordan exhorted all citizens to do something to assist Territorial training. He made a special appeal to employers to assist by allowing their employees time off for training. “Tell them you expect them to go,” said Mr Jordan, “and at the same time say they will not lose anything by it. The extra small amount needed to make up their wages can be regarded as a small in* crease in insurance premiums, and a very good investment too.”