FAREWELL MESSAGE FROM GOVERNOR-GENERAL

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 32, 1 November 1929, Page 10

FAREWELL MESSAGE FROM GOVERNOR-GENERAL

ADVICE TO RETURNED SOLDIERS “I appeal to you to hold together, to keep up a high standard of integrity and good conduct, and to guard jealously the good name which the association has earned and now enjoys,” said His Excellency the Governor-General (Sir Charles Fergusson) to the members of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association in a farewell message.

His Excellency’s letter was read at the last meeting of the executive of the Wellington Returned Soldiers’ Association and was received with marked satisfaction.

“I am particularly glad,” he wrote, “of the opportunity afforded me of sending a message to my comrades of the Returned Soldiers’ Association as my term of office is nearing its end. My predecessor in a former message reminded you that the underlying object of the association is to keep alive the spirit and the realisation of the nobility of service and self-sacrifice, and to foster that spirit in the ordinary everyday life of the community; in other words, to put into practice in peacetime the lessons of comradeship and good-fellowship which we learned during the years of war. An Immense Factor for Good. ‘‘On many occasions in my meetings with different branches of the association I have tried to emphasise this as part of our objects and aims, .as an incentive to encourage us to maintain and enlarge our membership. In such an association these are the main objects quite apart from the pleasure and advantage which we ourselves derive from companionship and social gatherings: First, the help which we can be to those who have suffered in one way or another from the war, and, secondly, the example and leading which we can give to the community at large. We can, in fact, if we realise our powers and responsibilities, be an immense factor for -good in the country, especially in relation to the generation of young people now growing up. “As the years go on we old soldiers will feel more and more the value of close comradeship and of mutual help and co-operation; and the stronger our numbers the greater the influence we shall be able to wield and the more good we shall be able to do. I therefore appeal to you to hold together, to keep up a high standard of integrity and good conduct, and to guard . jealously the good name which the association has earned and now enjoys. “I shall aways be proud of the badge which the New Zealand Association presented to me. I count it an honour to wear it, and it will always remind me of the kindness and goodwill which you have extended to me since my arrival in the Dominion, I wish God-speed and good-luck to you all." The president (Colonel G. T. Hall) said that this message, .which had _ come through the New Zealand Association, should be read by every returned soldier in the Dominion, and that he should do more than that —he too should do his share in encouraging the association to “maintain and enlarge its membership.” They were deeply grateful to His Excellency for the kindly interest he had always manifested in the welfare of the returned soldiers, and long after his departure from these shores —which they all regretted—the words from him they had heard that night would he long remembered.