"NO CHOICE."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 44, 21 February 1940, Page 8

"NO CHOICE."

A GRIM REALITY. RECRUITING APPEAL OPENING OF NEW STATION. "Make no mistake about this—we are fighting for our very existence, our selfpreservation: fighting the powers of darkness; and the Government of Xew Zealand exhorts every man who is capable of bearing arms to volunteer in this fight against the common enemy." This was the dramatic appeal made at mid-day to-day by the Hon. H. G. R. Mason, Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, at the opening of a new recruiting station, situated in front of the Chief Post Office in Queen Street. Mr. Mason was speaking in the absence of the Minister of Defence, the Hon. F. Jones, who was ■ elsewhere in pursuance of his duties. There was quite a martial air about Queen Street for some time before the opening of the new recruiting office, and interest was accentuated as the band of the First Battalion. Auckland Regiment, preceded a platoon of Xational Reservists, with fixed bayonets, and led by Captain R. S. Judson, V.C., to the rallying spot. Hundreds of people thronged the thoroughfare, and the dense crowd outside the post office was overlooked by spectators more or less precariously perched in the hundreds of window apertures in the vicinity. Mr. Mason got to the point without any preamble. He referred to Herr Hitler's spec : '•us promises before his annexation of "Austria, by fraud," "Czechslovakia, by fraud and violence," and "Poland, by violence"; and pointed out that these aggressions followed a disregard of various treaties. "At the outset," sa:J Mr. Mason, "Hitler took advantage of our sporting spirit, but Poland was the crucial phase, or test. The question then was, 'When is this violence to cease?' We were forced to realise that we would have to fight for our existence, that Hitler regards Christian virtues as weakness. We are face to face with a fight against the Powers of Darkness, and the Government, 'believing in the voluntary system, appeals to everyone, irrespective of politics, to stand shoulder to shoulder to fight the common enemy. Wo have no choice in this matter. The war must be prosecuted vigorously for our own preservation."