DUTY TO EMPIRE AND COUNTRY

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23496, 26 November 1941, Page 3

DUTY TO EMPIRE AND COUNTRY

PLEA FOR AWAKENING “A DAY OF RECKONING” FORESEEN A plea to air members of the community to realise the urgency of awakening to their obligations to the Empire, to New Zealand, and to men serving overseas, and a warning of * a day of reckoning to come,” were made by Mr D. W. Russell, president of the Christchurch Returned Services’ Association, in an address to the General Service Corps last evening. “You ladies of the General Service Corps have realised your obligations, Mr Russell said, “but there are a lot in the community who have not done so, who are doing no work of any kind and making no sacrifices. “I have said that there would be a day of reckoning,” he said later. _ That day of reckoning may come with an attack on these shores, but if it does not come then it will certainly come when the men come back, some of whom will be limbless, some of whom will be sightless, some of whom wiU be broken in mind and spirit. And when they look into our faces, although blind, they will know whether we played a part worthy of them and worthy of that heritage bequeathed to us by our forefathers, and by the Anzacs of the last war. They will know whether we are worthy to take in our hands and to hold the torch of freedom and liberty ..." New. Zealanders of this generation, he said, were a very favoured people. It was good for them to be reminded of the rights of citizenship in the British Empire and to think of duties which those rights demanded. A debt was owed to men and women of sturdy British stock who founded the country. “We have enjoyed these privileges so easily and with such little effort that we seldom bring ourselves to realise that they are in danger of being jeopardised and that they may be wrested and torn from us without warning and with terrifying .and striking suddenness. To-day. when advantages of time and space have been conquered by modern inventions we no longer have that immunity from molestation which we previously enjoyed. With radio, high-powered engines, and powerful guns harnessed to chariots of war we no longer stand isolated and able to detach ourselves complacently from world-wide events. “At any time now, more especially having regard to matters in the Far East—and let me say that the British Government must regard the matter there as grave, otherwise they would not have dispatched a Cabinet Minister to be on the spot there to advise them—and further having regard to the conversations between envoys of Japan and the United States of America, we may be called upon to meet an invader. If this comes to pass does any one of us expect that we will be spared the tortures, cruelties. humiliating experiences, and monstrous punishments which have been inflicted upon the conquered peoples of Europe. “Therefore, in order that we may be ready to meet any attack we must be prepared and must make sacrifices. We have two main duties. One is to do everything possible to defend our homes and the other is to support our men overseas.”