HOME GUARD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 November 1940, Page 4

HOME GUARD

APPEAL FOR BETTER RESPONSE MADE BY DOMINION PRESIDENT OF R.S.A. DUTY OF PERSONAL SERVICE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Those who were eligible and fit and did not join the Home Guard were lacking in patriotism, declared the Dominion president of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association, Mr Perry, M.L.C.. in a statement yesterday. Duty in this war, he said, did not end with a donation to the patriotic funds or the War Expenses Account. In making an appeal for a better response than had been made to date by those eligible to join the Home Guard, Mr. Perry admitted that his words were hard and said he hoped he would be forgiven if he might seem a little bitter. “Those who fought in 1914-18,” he said, “purchased national security with their blood and suffering and the tears and agony of their womenfolk. Those of that generation and some of the one that followed, for whom they purchased it for so great a price, sold it for a miserable pot of pacifism. Let those who sold national security show now that they are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to repurchase it at a much higher prices than they sold it for.” To win this war the British Empire must make an effort greater than any other nation had ever made, and greater perhaps than the sum of all the struggles of all nations. Yet there were thousands of men in New Zealand who had not given one-half of their time to the war effort. “Do you, who watched them go away, who watched them come back to begin life all over again expect the old soldiers of the last war to do the job for you all over again?” Mr. Perry asked. “Let me remind you that when the late Prime Minister, Mr. Savage, called for volunteers for the National Reserve in May, 1939, by far the greatest response came from these old soldiers. The response from the rest of the male population was poor. “Your duty is also one of personal service for the defence of your inheritance. If you are not prepared to give it, then God help New Zealand, for you will have proved unworthy of your heritage.”