CALL TO ARMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 January 1940, Page 7

CALL TO ARMS

RECRUITING APPEAL

MADE BY PRIME MINISTER. VOLUNTARY SERVICE PRINCIPLE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. An appeal to the young men of the country to offer themselves for military service was made last night by the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, in the eighth of his Sunday night talks on current New Zealand problems. New Zealand was at war, he said, because there was no honourable alternative. The situation was now really grave and the time had come for men to fight. The Government had not brought forward, and had no wish to bring forward, any measure establishing compulsory service, for the sole reason that it believed in the superior merits of voluntary service. He wished it to be said that the New Zealand soldier was a volunteer on whom no compulsion was brought to bear but that of his own conscience. He trusted that in the whole Nev/ Zealand Division there would be not one conscript. ■To a man who is already past military age, and has himself never been on active service, no task can be less congenial than that of urging other men to go to war." said Mi’ Savage. "Yet that, is my theme tonight. If without shirking my duty, I could escape this task. I would gladly do so; but I cannot.

“It is impossible to consider the many problems that await solution in this country without realising, all the time, that a big ‘if’ stands in front of any plans that we may form. Social security, the development and extension of industries, immigration, increased rural development —these anc a score of other tasks will retain importance for us if, and I fear only if we win the war. On that, our every hope for the future depends. I cannoi help wondering at times whether everyone in the country realises this.

"I wish it to be said that every New Zealand soldier is a volunteer on whom no compulsion was brought to bear but that of his own conscience. The First Echelon consisted wholly of such men. The Second and Third Echelons will be of the same texture and composition. I trust that in the whole New Zealand Division there may be not one conscript.’